


making a blank page bloom: drabble collection

by rosegardeninwinter



Series: sketched lightly: assorted Hunger Games short stories [6]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: A mix of canon and AU, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Random & Short
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2020-08-18 20:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 89
Words: 40,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20197663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosegardeninwinter/pseuds/rosegardeninwinter
Summary: so, I write more than I realized I did when I created my ao3 account ... and in lieu of flooding my dashboard with stories that are arguably too small to warrant an entire document on their own, I figured it'd make more sense to start compiling my Hunger Games tumblr drabbles in one document for simplicity of reading ... so here that is! longer stories will still get their own document





	1. the high heat of summer

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on tumblr under the same username and see if I'm taking prompts! I can't promise the world's quickest turnaround between WIPs and work, but I'll do my very best!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; inspired by @lovely-tothe-bone and @white-dandelion-seeds on tumblr! woodsy everlark and writing songs is my favorite so I'm indulging myself ...

“It was high in the heat of summer  
when I drew my love from the cold.  
Sunlight and moss for our feather down,  
we made a bed of gold.”

In the earliest hours of the morning he woke choking on memories of electric shocks fissuring up his spine. It was the convulsion of his arms that shook her out of her own half-drowsing state. She clung to him as his eyes bulged and his body went rigid except for the involuntarily jumping muscles in his leg and the frantic tremors of his heart.

The episode broke like a fever, drenching him in cold sweat. She soaked a cloth in warm water and lemon balm from her mother’s herb cabinet and washed his face until his hands gently pushed hers away.

“I feel sick,” he’d groaned. “I need to get out of this house.”

She knows the feeling. She’d put on her softest shoes and helped him pull on a shirt and pants. She’d gathered up a blanket and a canteen of water, dinner’s leftover bread and a jar of honey. He watched her from the couch, fingers drumming nervously on his knees until she steadied them.

“Come on,” she’d said, and helped him down the front steps. The nerves in his thigh were acting up, exacerbating his limp, and she supported him with one arm around his back and the other braced against his chest. It was slow-going, but they had nowhere to be, save for together. By the time the sun came up, he was walking on his own strength again.

“No one owns the woods,” her father told her once. “No one ever has.” Out here, it feels like no one ever owned them either.

Now, Katniss sits by the westbound river with Peeta’s head in her lap, his chest rising and falling with easy breaths. She sweeps her fingers through his hair, stroking and massaging, scratching his scalp.

She watches his expression, a look of weary contentment, as he studies the flow of the water: rushing clear and fast over black and amber pebbles, leaping with a splash over big rocks, skirting around roots along the bank. Overhead, warm wind teases the canopy of birches, sending morning light quivering down to dart and linger on his skin, mapped with scars. 

It’s a map she never gets tired of traversing.

“You’re mine,” she’ll say on nights like last night, when he swears he still smells the roses. She’ll lavish the words against the stump of his leg, the taut gashes on his stomach, the needlepoint on his neck and whip-work on his back, against the mouth that said such awful things to her once. “Not theirs. Never theirs. Only ever mine.”

“What’s that song you’re singing?” he asks. “I’ve never heard it before.”

“Oh, uh - ” she says. Five years after their impromptu rainy day toasting and he still makes her blush. “That’s because I’m making it up.”

He turns over to look at her. “You made that song up?”

She nods. “I don’t know, I felt inspired. It’s not great.”

“Katniss,” he sighs, tugging on her braid, “it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful song.”

“You’re only saying that because I’m the one singing it.”

He shakes his head. “Not true. The words are like poetry. Can you sing more?”

“I’m only singing what comes to mind. It’s hardly poetry.”

“Sing more,” is his only reply, soft and pleading. “It can be about doing laundry as far as I’m concerned.”

She can’t deny him anything.

“Um - ” she stutter-starts. She decides to sing the first part again, to find her rhythm.

“It was high in the heat of summer  
when I drew my love from the cold.  
Sunlight and moss for our feather down,  
we made a bed of gold.”

Peeta sighs and closes his eyes. Katniss lifts hers to their surroundings. Oak and pine, laurel and blackberries. Sunlight glowing in deep pools. Wild but safe. Expansive, but crowding cozily close.

“My father, he was a songbird  
and he taught me the hymn of the woods.  
And my lover, he says, ‘Sing of laundry.  
I’ll lie and say that it’s good.’”

He laughs. “But it is good!”

“Oh, please.” 

“No, I mean it. You should try your hand at writing. Not just the memory book.”

“Words are your thing.”

“Public speaking, sure. But just listen to your voice, Katniss. It’s clear and poignant and - and genuine. You’re a storyteller.”

She shakes her head but accepts the compliment. Her voice grows quiet and serious as another verse takes shape.

“I know some nights, my darling,  
you sleep in a stranger’s bones.  
Come out to the woods, lie beside me,  
and we’ll find a way back home.”

“See?” he murmurs. “You’re singing from your heart.”

“No,” she corrects. “No, that’s where you’re wrong.”

She twirls one of his short, ashy curls around her thumb and tracks the path of a yellow leaf from the air to the river. “I’m not singing from my heart. I’m singing to it.”


	2. nightlock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> au; if the "stunt" with the berries hadn't worked

the announcement that one of them must die is rescinded

too late

the taste of the berries is nicer than she thought it would be  
the grass into which she crumples is cool and wet  
the sky is blue  
his eyes are blue  
this boy whose hand she holds  
she is glad he is with her  
maybe she could have loved him  
maybe she does  
she can count the number of heartbeats on one hand  
the number of faltering breaths  
the number of kisses he presses to her lips  
one is soft  
three is softer  
five is the slump of his dead mouth against her dying one  
strange thunder and the blare of music are water in her ears  
she has won  
but it does not matter  
when the water clears and she comes to her feet  
in a forest clearing  
her father is there  
and the boy  
looking for all the world as though they’ve become best friends in the half seconds it has taken her to get here  
and they smile at her  
and she runs to embrace them both

there is no victor that year  
but people remember  
the children with stained lips  
lying in the silent arena  
the image is burned on every television screen

her hunting partner grabs a gallon of gasoline and anger  
her sister finds courage and matches under the sink  
the mayor’s daughter puts on the dead girl’s pin and the dead boy’s conviction  
together they burn the country to the ground


	3. special tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> au; written for @cadsingh77 with the prompt: “Peeta’s dated all the wrong girls before really seeing his best friend is everything he needs."

“It’s me,” he says, showing up at her doorstep at around eight, tie dejectedly wrenched to one side in a posture of defeat. The Kentucky night is muggy and his curls are a frustrated mess. 

“I can see that,” Katniss greets him with a wry smirk. “Microwave macaroni?” 

“No I mean,” he clarifies, hopping on one foot as he kicks his dress shoes into the corner by her hiking boots, “Did you ever see that one poster thing that was like ‘Have you ever noticed that the only consistent thing in all of your dysfunctional relationships is you?’” 

He flops onto her couch, and she flashes him the scowl that intimidated him so badly on their first day of middle school. She rips the wrap off the macaroni with force. “Hey,” she says sharply. “No. It’s not you.”

He stares at her with weary disbelief. “Explain how it’s not me. I’ve seen four girls in the past two and like a half months. Five counting tonight; and only made it past the third date with one.” 

“Okay maybe it is you,” she says, clicking a time into the microwave and joining him on the couch. “But not in the way you’re thinking.” She throws her feet over his legs and he pats her ankle distractedly. “Here’s the thing, Peeta. You have an incredible ability to see the very best in people. Even when it’s not there.” 

“Easy for you to say.” 

“Peeta, be honest with me: could you really see yourself with any of those girls long-term?” 

“I - no.” 

“Good. Me neither.” 

“So now you tell me what you think.” 

A reluctant smile tugs at his mouth and she shoves his shoulder gently. The smile grows. 

“I didn’t need to get into it. I’m not your mom.” 

“No,” he exhales. “Sweet mercy. But you know, it’s … discouraging.” 

“Prim’s got a special tea for times like this,” Katniss says. Peeta laughs when she returns from the kitchen, not with an herbal concoction, but popping the cork from a bottle of wine. “It’s mostly Pinot Noir.” 

“It’s entirely Pinot Noir,” he jokes as she pours and they clink their glasses together. She raises her eyebrows in a “guilty as charged” expression as she sips. The microwave beeps. 

“And now for the main course,” she says. He watches her, his best friend of twelve years, as she cobbles together plates and forks and plops huge servings of pasta onto their plates. Her black braid is falling apart, tucked into the hood of her oversized sweatshirt, and she probably hasn’t yet noticed the fact that she’s somehow managed to get cheese on her sweatpants. For some reason, his chest starts to hurt and to feel unbearably light at the same time. 

“Wanna watch something?” she asks, handing him the food. 

She’s not the only one who hasn’t noticed what’s right in front of them. 

She frowns at him. “What is it?” 

“I think I love you - ” His face goes red and he clumsily backtracks, “- ‘re sister’s special tea.” 

Katniss’s frown turns into very wide eyes. “You know what you said.”

“Yeah, I know,” he agrees immediately, cringing. 

The most awkward silence of Peeta’s life follows for a good minute. Then Katniss gives a shaky laugh and bites her lip to contain a nervous smile. 

“Suppose we’re not watching anything until we unpack that one, huh?” 

He laughs too, just as shaky. “Suppose not.”


	4. orange juice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sequel to "special tea" / modern best friends!everlark au

The luxuriant lull of the waves is broken by the sound of a spoon being tapped sharply against glass. Katniss lifts her sunglasses appraisingly as Peeta sidles into view against the emerald and turquoise panorama of the private resort.

“Public service announcement,” he proclaims loudly, still clinking away on what she sees is a cup of orange juice.

“Quit that,” she protests. “You’re disturbing my tranquility.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, setting down the orange juice and climbing into the covered cabana with her. He rests his chin against the hip of her bikini, kisses her navel. “I’ve figured it out,” he starts, then makes a face and wipes his mouth. “What sort of sunscreen are you using?” 

“Strong, men deterring, SPF fifty,” she lists bluntly.

“It tastes like - ” He sticks his tongue out in disgust. “Uh, synthetic coconut.”

“I’m going to push you over the side of this dock,” she says and flicks her sunglasses resolutely down over her eyes again.

Undeterred, Peeta plops his head down against her stomach and heaves a sigh of contentment. His hand draws a lazy series of figure eights against her side. It tickles, but she doesn’t want him to stop.

“Don’t you want to know what I’ve figured out?” 

“What did you figure out?” she humors.

“Do you remember what you asked me the night we uh - inadvertently confessed that we’d had crushes on each other since eleventh grade?”

She smiles at the memory. That was a long night. They’d finished the Pinot Noir at nine, but they’d stayed up talking, laughing, and yes, kissing, until well past three in the morning. It was awkward for about twenty minutes of that, and then everything just made sense.

“Ninth, in my case,” she corrects him, fingers straying to his hair, blonder than ever in the island sun. “And you were the only one inadvertently confessing anything. My confession was completely … vertent.” 

“That’s not a word,” he says, feathering another kiss against her ribcage, apparently choosing to forgo the synthetic coconut. “Anyway, do you remember what you asked?”

“I asked why it’d taken us so long to realize what we needed was right under our noses.”

“And I said I didn’t know. I didn’t know why it had taken so long. But I think I’ve figured it out.”

“Oh?”

“Because - take those off.” He reaches up and snatches her glasses away from her face so he can look her in the eyes. She loves his eyes. She loves everything about him: her lab partner in sophomore year science, her shoulder to cry on through college midterms, her video game competitions and snarky text streams and macaroni therapy sessions. 

“Because,” he says, “I thought falling in love with your best friend was something that happened in movies. It was too good to be true. You were too good to be true.”

She groans and throws her arm over her face. “You absolute sap,” she says.

“Tell me I’m wrong!” he laughs.

“You’re wrong,” she says immediately, but she doesn’t mean it. “You sentimental idiot.”

But when he props himself up on his elbows and kisses her lips, tasting of citrus, she lets him, and happily. Because he’s right, of course, and it makes her giddy inside, however lovey-dovey the whole thing is, that she’s in love with her best friend.

“What was your public service announcement?” she asks between kisses.

“Oh.” He grins. “I just wanted to inform the resort that I love my wife.” 

“Well,” she says, “Okay, I guess you can disturb my tranquility for that.”


	5. sleeping at last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; written for the prompt: "Katniss and Peeta during the time after the war, where they’re friendly but not yet romantic, decide to go out and explore the forest to see what’s out there. They find an old cabin thats been long abandoned and decide to stay there for the night. But there’s only one bed!"

She’s starting to wonder if people can become nocturnal. The first flush of spring and the arrival of the boy with the primroses have awakened her from her winter daze but now she can’t go back to sleep.

It’s four in the morning and she’s pacing around her bathroom, out into the hallway, back to the bathroom, the back door, the landing halfway up the stairs, the kitchen, bedroom, then three times around the couch.

She’s crouched in her bathtub, nails in her mouth, when she sees a light go on in the attic across the street.

She checks the clock (tick tock, tick tock, will she ever stop looking over her shoulder for fog and monkeys?) and decides it’s a reasonable enough hour for this not to be completely rude. She goes barefoot to knock on his door, knowing she can’t very well say what she desperately wants to.

They share meals these days, and they garden together, and they help each other carry packages from the train, and she can’t bring herself to ruin any of that by pleading with him to come to bed with her, however innocently she may mean it.

She can hear him crashing down the stairs before she’s even raised her fist to knock a second time. His gait is, as usual, indelicate enough to scare away any animals within a five mile radius, and that’s what puts the idea in her head.

“We’re going for a walk,” she says by way of hello. He’s clearly not been sleeping either. His eyes are bloodshot and his fingers are shaking like her mother’s used to when she had too much of that nasty can coffee Papa scrounged and saved to treat them with. “Get your shoes.”

“You’re not wearing any,” Peeta points out and she shrugs, but she lets him give her an overlarge pair of boots. It’s not like she needs to be stealthy. He wears work shoes, poorly polished, and he follows her without question. Because of course he does. When will you learn? she chides him in her mind, but she’s grateful he hasn’t yet.

It’s strange not having to slip under a fence to get in among the pines and ferns, and a part of her is daunted by that realization.

“We wouldn’t make it five miles,” she had said to Gale a thousand years ago.

Now, they can go on forever, if they want. Vanish into the mountains and never be seen or heard from again. She stops on the edge of the dark beyond and reaches out blindly for something to steady herself. She finds his hand and thinks of a story Prim was taught in school, about a girl and a boy who marked their way back home with a trail of breadcrumbs. If they’re meant to come back, they will.

They do make it five miles. The sun rises, pale and diluted, as they travel, skidding down slopes, clambering up inclines, sometimes manic, sometimes as though each movement aches. She finds bark and berries for them and he helps her down a steep bank for water. They barely speak, but that’s okay. There’s a language in the clasp of their hands, in the occasional gesture to a chirping bird or a darting chipmunk, a grunt or a hum of acknowledgment.

It’s noon when they come upon it: tiny, one room, sturdy stone and wood, in the midst of what was probably once a clearing, but is now overrun with weeds and saplings.

“From the Dark Days?” he muses aloud as they cautiously creak open the door.

“Must be,” she says, scanning the cobwebs in the corner and the ivy choking the fireplace.

“Or before.”

“It’s beautiful,” she says.

“It’s sad,” he says. “It’s lonely.”

“It can be both,” she whispers and the unspoken everything hangs in the air alongside the dust.

“We could fix it up,” he says after a moment. 

“Can we?” Hopeful.

“I think so.” Just as.

Routine becomes their savior. She’s at his front step at four on the minute every day after that, sometimes earlier. They gut the house, rip up the floorboards and smash the filthy windows. It’s a welcome violence, an absolution. Their fingers grow rough with work and their hearts start to beat with purpose. It’s a good feeling, to be beside each other as dawn comes in from the east, making the most of their insomnia.

When only the walls and the hearth remain, they borrow a cart from Thom and begin the remaking. It’s a real trick, hauling supplies and furniture for five miles, and more than once she drops the cart wheel on his metal foot, denting the toes, but they don’t ask for help from anyone. No one else needs to know about this.

They lay a new floor, mount a new door. They fit clean windows and get the flue back in order. They bring a table and chairs from his house, a trunk from hers, a poker and tongs for the fire, a rug, lace curtains, a vase for the mantle.

They bring the bed last, copper framed, from a house no victor ever used. It’s easier than imagining who the bed might’ve served in one of theirs: her sister, his brother, her father, his mother.

They pick a bad day to bring it, but they start unusually late, and the weather doesn’t change until they’re halfway to the cabin. Billowing gray clouds gather above them and wind sends the leaves into an eerie dance.

It’s a deluge by the time they get to the cabin, but there’s something invigorating about the cool drops soaking their clothes and hair and they laugh at their own haste as they slosh to get the bed out of the cart and bring it inside. They construct it in record time, tuck in a colorful quilt and plump up the pillows, get a fire going in the hearth and just like that, their project is done.

And everything stops. 

It’s like a deep inhale after a long held breath. The adrenaline drains out of Katniss’s body and she sits on the edge of the bed with a thump. Peeta sits next to her. 

“Hey,” he says, “we did good.”

“We did,” she murmurs. “It looks like a home now.”

The fire is mesmerizing, the way it trembles and plays in shades of orange and red and hints of purple. The rain drums persistently on the roof and the wind is high, swaying branches; there’s no way they’re going back in this. And she doesn’t want to. Here it’s safe and warm. A drowsy, heavy-limbed sensation is overtaking her.

“I think I could sleep,” she says.

“Me too,” he says, and it’s only confirmed when his voice catches on a yawn.

Katniss heaves a sigh, tasting the scents of cedar and smoke. Her eyes close. “I miss sleep.”

When she looks up, she sees her own question, the question she was too afraid to ask, hesitating on his lips. She nods her answer before he can speak.

Boots are unlaced, jackets draped over chairs, her hair is out of its braid in one swipe of her quick fingers, his prosthesis is unhooked, and they bundle under the quilt. 

Then there’s a moment, a pause, and the distance that keeps them apart is the distance that airwaves leap to show a handful of nightlock on every screen in the country, is the length of electrical wire that broke when she lost him, is the circumference of his fingers around her neck, is the twenty five yards between exhaustion and -

“I miss you.” 

Then, it’s easy. It’s muscle memory. Like the halves of a locket, they click into place. Arms twine, hips press, foreheads rest gently against each other. His fingers thread in her hair and hers thread in the fabric of his sweater, clinging tight enough to hurt, but they’ve had far worse and the tears that start down her face aren’t pained ones.

“I can’t sleep,” he confesses, “not without you.”

“I know,” she says. “I know.” She isn’t sure she’s slept, really slept, since that last night in the Quell, but maybe she’ll be able to now.

She nudges her head under his chin and hears a soft, almost whimper work its way up his throat. His thumb strokes her cheek and a wave of calm ripples out from that simple motion. It makes her delirious and dizzy with relief.

Most nights, she knows when she’s fallen into a fitful stupor because she trips instantly into a nightmare. Tonight though, she doesn’t know when firelight and rain fade into a lush, green morning. For a heartbeat, she waits for the other shoe to drop. For the tranquil dream to turn sour.

It doesn’t.

She gasps and her companion stirs, blinking bleary blue eyes. 

“We slept through the night,” she tells him. 

His eyes widen as he takes it in: her words, her presence, sunlight pouring, liquid as honey, into the room. 

“No nightmares,” he says in awe. 

“Not a single one,” she breathes.

It won’t always be that good, they know that. But it doesn’t seem worth denying themselves it being a little better. 

So when he comes to her door that evening with a box of all his belongings and a cautious, quiet smile, she gladly lets him in.


	6. fearless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; an everlark sleeping bag drabble; dashed out in like fifteen minutes so I can’t speak to its quality

It isn’t unusual for 12 to get storms this time of year, but this one is bad. The house shakes and the baker’s six year old pulls his blankets up to his chin, eyes wide and fearful, as the room flashes white and goes dark again with a sound like the cannons on television.

“I’m not scared,” he tells himself in a lisp. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not scared — no!”

The scream is drowned out in a wave of thunder that makes his teeth rattle.

He covers his ears with his sweaty palms and jumps out of his bed, tripping over to the bed where a snoring lump sleeps inexplicably on.

“Brann!” he squeaks, “Brann, I’m scared…”

His brother grunts and waves a hand dismissively from under the covers. “Grow up, Peeta. Go back to bed.”

“But I don’t wanna sleep alone,” Peeta pleads. “Can I stay with you?”

“If you wanna be coddled, go find Bannock.” 

Biting his lip to keep from crying, Peeta tiptoes into the living room, where his eldest brother is sprawled out on the couch. He tugs on Bannock’s sleeve.

“What is it, Peet?” comes the yawn. 

“I’m scared,” he whispers. “Can I stay with you?”

Bannock ruffles his brother’s curls affectionately. “No room, kiddo. But you’re a big boy. It’s just some rain and lightning.”

“But — !”

“Go on, buddy. The rest of us wanna sleep.”

And he rolls over. Peeta stands there, tears starting down his face. For one mad second he thinks about knocking on his parents’ door, but he knows how that would end. Slowly, he goes back to his room, curls up under the covers and puts his pillow over his head, hiccuping softly. “I’m not scared, I’m not.”

He should have every reason to be scared now, waking in cramped sleeping bag, in a wet, cold cave, knowing that death could be waiting just beyond his line of sight.

Except he isn’t. Well, he is, somewhere in the back of his mind, terrified. But somehow, it’s easier to forget about when she’s here.

Her leg thrown over his, head resting on his chest, one slender hand loosely curled against her heart, mouth parted as she breathes, not a scowl in sight. Warm and relaxed and close and here.

She found him. She stayed.

He touches his forehead to hers and her nose twitches, just a bit, like a drowsy cat’s. He wants to laugh, but thinks the motion might wake her. So instead he settles for dropping a kiss against her cheek. He can do that now, he thinks happily. 

She let him kiss her. Several times. Of course, he remembers with a grin, a few of those he knows were to get him to eat or to stop talking … but then there was that one … she wasn’t trying to get him do to anything then. 

He kisses her dark hair, her nose, the corner of her mouth. She hums contentedly in her sleep and shifts to nestle closer into his side. Maybe they can do this. Maybe they can both win this thing. With her by his side, in his arms, he feels like he could take on Cato bare-handed. 

“I’m not scared,” he tells her, even though she can’t hear him. “I’m not.”

And this time, it’s true.


	7. science

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; written for starsmahogany with the prompt: "can you please write a little drabble about katniss and peeta holding/seeing their baby girl for the first time?"

I was only ever taught the minimum amount of science in school.

(Repeat after me: coal is a hard rock which can be burned as a solid fossil fuel).

Anything else I learned, I learned from it happening to me.

(Repeat after me; symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder may include any of the following: flashbacks, severe anxiety, nightmares, you may never stop seeing your sister standing at the foot of your bed with embers in her hair, your husband has scars on his stomach from where they slashed him open and pumped him with poison, and you absolutely should not, under any circumstances, try to bring a baby into the world because you would have to be unspeakably cruel to burden a child with parents like that). 

But science can have no explanation for this.

This can’t be ours. We wild, reclusive creatures who once made our den in a shallow, rainy cave, can’t have created this. The tears running down my face and the residual ache fading from my abdomen must be blinding me.

Hair like mine, like the dark, rich earth that brings up the most abundant wildflowers. Her father’s eyes, at their most lucid blue, skies without a single cloud. My mother’s delicate nose, the old baker’s round, pink face; both will surely freckle in the sun.

I’m holding springtime in my arms. Pure, warm, soft springtime, swaddled in cream bunting. The longest night of my life is over, and I realize I would do it all again, everything. Games and war and pain. I’d do it ten, a hundred, a thousand times over, if at the end of it I find myself here. 

If I find this.

If I find her.

And him.

My boy, kneeling beside the bathtub where I recline, is an unusual mate for a mockingbird, but the only one that knows how it feels to have your wings clipped. I don’t think he’s stopped crying since our daughter took her first, shaky breath. I certainly haven’t. We don’t cry much anymore, when we wake from nightmares; then, we are numb. Now, I do cry, because I’ve never felt so deeply.

“She’s perfect, you’re perfect,” he keeps repeating. It’s the same cadence as when he tells himself “real” or “not real” but I know he won’t be having an episode again for a long, long time. 

I turn my head to catch his lips in a silent “thank you.” Somehow, he’s done it again, given me hope like a bright flash of yellow on a bleak, bone cold day. It astounds me, the idea that, apparently, I have done the same for him, but he swears I have. “Since the first time I heard you sing,” he’ll say. “Like a canary promising the air was safe to breathe.” 

I lay my head back against the porcelain edge of the bath. In a beam of sunlight, with my daughter at my heart, one of her tiny hands locked around her father’s thumb, I’m starting to believe it might be true. I’m starting to believe we can do this. We might’ve been creatures in a cave, but we left, didn’t we? We made a run for it. We came home.

(You should not, under any circumstances - )

_Well, circumstances change,_ I think with a touch of my old defiance. _Maybe the science is wrong._


	8. coal-fire lungs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; written for mega-aulover with the prompt: "Peeta and Katniss training and poor Haymitch is out of shape. Katniss is upset because she wants Peeta to be less stringent on Haymitch but Peeta only thinking of their future wants Haymitch to train like a Tribute."

I think I’ve figured out how the Capitol could’ve won last year’s Games. In fact, as I nurse a canteen of lukewarm tea (a sad substitute for nursing a good rye whisky), I’m sure of it. If old Seneca’d had the foresight to drop a pile of wrestling mats down into the arena, the ensuing showdown would’ve sent ratings through the roof. 

Sweetheart growls as she lunges for the Kid, but it’s a sloppy attack. Her arm swings wide and the Kid takes the opportunity to knock her to the floor, where she smacks the mat with an open palm in frustration. 

“Get up,” the Kid demands. “No one’s gonna wait for you to catch your breath.”

“Oh wow, is that how the Games work? I had no idea,” she snarls, clambering to her feet and readying her stance again.

“You can’t try and use your weight against me, Katniss,” the Kid says as they circle each other. “You’ve got to use your advantages. Think light and agile.”

“Light and agile,” she repeats. “Light and agile. Okay, okay, come on. Again.”

Sweetheart holds her own this time. I estimate a solid four minutes of tussling before the Kid gets in a lucky blow and Sweetheart goes down again. 

“Okay, enough,” he says, wiping his palms on his shorts. “Haymitch, hand-to-hand. Let’s go.”

I sigh. I think the last time I worked out, strenuously worked out, were those brief days of respite between the Games ending and Ma and my girl and my brother … 

After that … alcohol distracts you more effectively than pushups anyway.

The Haymitch who went into the Quell would be embarrassed at not being able to run as long, lift as much, throw as far as ninety pounds of Seam girl and a pink-cheeked town kid can, but that Haymitch has been out of commission for decades. 

I’m making a pointed display of finishing my tea when Sweetheart starts to protest. Our world is coming to a swift end if she’s taking my side. Or maybe she’s just looking for an excuse to be peeved at the Kid. It’s kind of a nice change. 

“Lay off him, Peeta,” she says. “We’ve been going since dawn.”

“Katniss,” he reminds her in a voice that I bet’s meant to be patient, but unfortunately for him comes across as lecturing, “we’re supposed to be training like Careers, remember?”

“Don’t patronize me.” She pops a fist in the direction of his shoulder and he catches it on his palm.

I’m about to register a complaint, but they’re not listening. They’re at it again, punches matching words.

“Think about - how strong - Cato and Clove - were - we need - to be - like that,” the Kid grunts. 

“I guarantee you - they knew when - to stop! You were - with them - they spent - half those Games - resting!”

I whistle softly under my breath when she lands a good hit in his ribs. The Kid stumbles a bit and Sweetheart does a passable (if below the belt, in my opinion) imitation of him as she says, “No one’s gonna wait for you to catch your breath, Peeta.”

I see the exact moment they both snap and I’m on the verge of throwing something at them (the wad of jackets lying beside me maybe) when they launch back into the fight with a ferocity that makes me rethink getting in the middle of it. 

“And - yet - Cato - and - Clove - didn’t - win!” He tries to sweep her legs, but she leaps onto his back and pulls him down onto his stomach, pinions his shoulder blades with an elbow.

Sweetheart’s panting. “But we did. We survived because we worked together,” she hisses. 

I feel like this conversation isn’t about me anymore; maybe it never was.

The Kid suddenly flips them so she’s trapped underneath him, his hand pinning her wrists above her head, both of them glaring at each other.

“Forgive me, Katniss,” the Kid says, “if I’d rather not end up in a situation like Cato and Clove. If I’d rather not hold your hand and watch you die and always be thinking there was something more I could have done to save you.”

I’m not going to make it to Reaping Day, let alone the arena. This unresolved tension’s going to give me a stroke long before that.

“Alright,” I grumble at last, “while this is a riveting discussion, Katniss’s mother said nine for breakfast and since this diet is apparently so important, let’s not keep her waiting, huh?”

The fight goes out of them, just like that. The Kid lets Sweetheart go and they get to their feet, brushing back sweaty hair and shuffling awkwardly to collect their things.

I don’t wait for them. I push open the side door of the grimy old gym and slouch down the road. I hear the door behind me open twice as they follow and sigh at the gray sky.

Gray sky. Unbidden, my thoughts turn to stock footage of District 13, to the whisperings I heard on the Victory Tour. With a sudden hollow feeling in my stomach I remember something Ma told me long ago.

“They say that children born in twelve are born with a coal fire in their lungs.” I didn’t believe her until these two. 

Well, if the whispers and rumors are true, they’re going to need every ounce of fire they can muster between them.

And we’ll all have to hope even that’s enough.


	9. quickening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon; written for safeinpeetasarms and starsmahogany, who asked for pregnant!Katniss (to clarify, the first part of this, she's pregnant with the dancing girl and the second she's pregnant with the boy)

The leaves around me rustle. The moon is bright, casting a black and white dapple over my skin and clothes; in this light, it’s harder to see the burns that still map my body, fifteen years after the war. Yes, I still have scars, I remind myself, but I have other things too: my legs and arms are strong, stronger even than they were before, now that I can depend on food every day. My heart beats steady as I perch in the boughs of the big oak. It wasn’t as steady this afternoon. Who would’ve thought that a series of soft butterfly movements would bring me to the kitchen floor in a panic? 

My ears, once finely attuned to the sounds of gunfire and screams, have grown accustomed to the forest again. I can hear an owl hoot, a pair foxes gamboling around their den, crunching on autumn leaves. I wonder if it’s the twin kits that liked to trot through our backyard last spring. 

The thought of fox kits has my hand hesitantly splaying over the subtle rise of my stomach. “I’m sorry if I frightened you earlier. You startled me, that’s all,” I say. “Mama’s jumpy some days.” 

I sigh. “I’ll probably be jumpy until you get here,” I admit. “You’ll have to be patient with me.” 

Almost as if in answer, I feel that thing again, that fluttering sensation, and surprisingly, this time I’m not overwhelmed with fear. “You think you can do that?” I ask. I think of my husband, keeping the lights on at home, forever understanding of the rare occasions when I take flight like a wild animal, forever ready to coax me back inside. I smile in spite of myself. “Yeah? You’re taking after him already.” 

One of the foxes darts under my tree and I peer down at it. 

“You see that there?” I coo. “That’s a fox. They hunt for mice in the snow and they have long, red tails.” 

More flutters. 

“And hear that? That’s an October wind. It’s cold and sharp and sometimes you can smell hickory smoke on it.” 

I think the baby must like the sound of my voice. Some long dormant memory of chattering away to Prim when my mother was pregnant stirs up and sends a bittersweet warmth flooding through me. 

“You’ll like it here,” I promise. I lean back in the cradle of the branches and close my eyes. “It wasn’t always a good place, but it’s better now. We’re going to be okay.” 

A gentle kick.

“You’re right, baby,” I agree with a quiet laugh. “We shouldn’t keep your poor, sweet father waiting up, should we?” I take one last gaze at the moon, then heave a deep breath, filling my lungs with icy, fortifying air. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

I think we’re going to have a storm later. Heavy gray clouds are gathering in the east above the shortleaf pines. Good, we could use some rain. It’s been an usually hot early summer and the primroses in the garden are starting to look woebegone. 

As I step into the water, I feel a familiar squirming inside me and I sink further, up to my knees. My dress pools around me like a pink floral fan. I skim my fingers over the rippling surface as I speak. 

“It’s nice here, isn’t it? It’s quiet.” I say. “This is my father’s lake. He taught me to swim here and I taught your father. One day, I’ll teach you.” 

My hands are still sticky from lunch. As I clean them and splash my face, I say, “You won’t be old enough for a while to have honey and raspberry jam, but when you do, you’re going to love them. Especially on a slice of sourdough. Papa makes the best sourdough.” 

Something trills in the woods behind me. At first I think it’s a robin, but its song is too melodic to be anything but a mockingjay. I’ve barely realized this when my own mockingjay comes bounding down the lakeshore, holding an impressive array of wildflowers. 

“Look, Mama! Look! I brought you flowers!” she cries, shaking petals loose in a flurry of creams and yellows. 

“I thought you went searching for berries,” I say, catching her up in my arms so she can show me her woodland treasures. “Did you find them?” 

“Oh yes, we did! We found all of them! Papa, didn’t we?” She hops down and scampers to Peeta, who’s just emerged from the trees bearing a brimming bucket of blueberries and a wide smile. 

“We sure did, willow catkin,” he agrees as she bounces around him in excitement. “But we need to wash them up before we eat them.” 

I watch them, thinking how twenty years ago a pair of scorched birds, one a songbird, the other a mimicker, both creatures the Capitol never meant to survive, fled into the ashes of their home, never thinking they’d find any sort of peace. 

“But we did, didn’t we?” I say to the baby. “We found just enough, huh?” 

“Mama, who’re you talking to?” my daughter asks. 

“Your baby brother or sister,” I say and her face lights up. 

“Can you tell him something for me?” she pleads. (She’s convinced it’s going to be a brother). 

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” Peeta encourages. 

My daughter runs back to me and cuddles into my side. She ponders what she wants to say for a moment, then whispers, “Please come soon, baby brother. I’m gonna save the very yummiest blueberries for you.”


	10. pearl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> au; written for @cadsingh77 who for “single parent Katniss; my baby just called you daddy, and I don’t mind if you don’t mind” / an in universe AU where someone else was the Mockingjay

She came to 12 the autumn after the war with a baby cradled against her heart, and the first time she told him she was from the Capitol, Peeta thought she was joking (maybe a joke in poor taste, but a joke). She wasn’t. 

“I used to wear dresses with wings and fake fire,” she’d said, rueful, adjusting the bow in her daughter’s hair so she didn’t have to meet his eyes. “I don’t want that for her. That’s why I came here.”

“Do you have work?” he’d asked. No, she said. She’ll gladly learn how to do anything, but no one trusts a Capitol refugee. He hires her on the spot and she quickly becomes the hardest worker the bakery’s ever had.

He can’t pinpoint when he started to fall in love with her stormy stare or her sharp humor or her singing or the fierce devotion she has for her daughter. He certainly can’t pinpoint when she fell in love with him, but one day, out of the blue, as she’s balancing on a step stool and he’s handing her spices to put away, she stops, sets down a jar of cardamon and leans back against the cabinet, considering him.

“Yesterday,” she says, “I brought Pearl with me to get packages from the train.” Her lips twitch. “Do you want to know what she said when we came by here?”

“What did she say?” he says, beaming at the thought of Pearl’s sweet, babbling voice.

“She pointed right at the door, and started bouncing up and down … and um, she … she said ‘Dada.’”

Peeta feels his face going very red. He clears his throat.

“And what did you say?”

“I didn’t. I uh - I wanted to ask you how you felt about it.”

“I don’t mind.” The words come tumbling out much more readily than he means them to. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

She takes a step from the cabinet and reaches for his hand. He takes it and swears he can feel her heart racing, but her words are more measured when she answers. “I don’t mind. Not at all.”


	11. sugar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; a tiny bit of fluff; feat. Peeta overdoing it, as usual

she feels the heat wafting through the storm door before she enters the kitchen

“why is it so warm in here?” she asks, setting aside her gardening gloves

“cakes” her husband says

and she notices that there are two cakes laid out on the table: a delicate lilac one with a garnish of what on closer inspection turns out to be lavender and sorrel and one with chocolate oozing enticingly down the sides

he’s in the process of stacking a third cake (layers of buttercream and berries) and there seems to be a final one in the oven, lemon maybe 

the sink is full of dirty bowls and spoons

“not that I’m complaining, but what are all these for?”

“our wedding" 

she frowns in confusion, recalling the rainy night only a week ago when they’d knelt by the fire with bread and promises "but we’re already married”

“oh I know” he says with a sparkle in his eyes “but I thought we deserved a celebration” 

“and which cake were you thinking of serving our guests?” she inquires (it’ll be Haymitch and the cat at the most) 

“well” he says with a sigh and a grin “I think it’s tradition to let the bride choose”

“that’ll require tasting, my dear" 

somehow they’re both still innocent enough to go pink at the endearment (and that’s a victory in and of itself) 

"indeed it will” he says and tosses her a fork


	12. stars in our world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> au; written for the prompt: "Mini fic of a Narnia-Hunger games crossover? Peeta and Katniss meet the White Witch and the prophecy states they will rule as king and queen of Narnia, but the White Witch can't let that happen. Maybe Katniss is off put that they are "destined" to be together?"

The sky is a rich, deep blue as the sun sets, promising a clear view of the stars. She sits with her knees to her heart on a hillock just outside camp, but within view of the lanterns, watching wind run through the plains that stretch as far as the eye can see. 

What are the stars like here? Are they like stars in our world? Brighter? Colorful even? 

She wouldn’t put it past this place to have yellow or pink stars, to have swirls of them pouring over the landscape like a Van Gogh painting. Not after talking birds and lions and prophecies that tell her she’s going to be a queen. She traces her finger over the embroidery at the hem of her scarlet gown. She’s not going to deny that this is far more comfortable than her English school things, but some part of her regrets wearing it. 

It feels like accepting the destiny everyone keeps saying she has. 

But (her hand strays to the elegant bow and quiver with its black feathered arrows and she feels braver) hasn’t she? 

“Are you alright?” She glances up. He’s changed too and it’s not just the red tunic and gleaming greaves; there’s something in his face, a maturity that wasn’t there days before, when they were trecking, up to their thighs, in snow. The arrival of spring has strengthened them both it would seem. 

“Yes,” she says and pats the space beside her. 

“Thank you.” 

The first star has shown. It’s silver. Something about that makes the nerves in Katniss’s chest subside. Not so different from our world then. 

She takes a breath and turns to look at her companion. The contrasting lantern light on the left side of his face and the starlight on his right makes the gold and blue of his features stand out in a pleasant way. She might even call it handsome. 

“I - uh - about what I said earlier. By the river. About not needing you - ”

“It’s nothing,” he says with a soft smile. “We were both frightened and angry. ” 

“But I do need you,” she says. “You’re the only thing I’ve got from home.” She pauses. Another cluster of stars have appeared, all silver. “And you’re my friend.” 

“And I can stay your friend,” he says, “If that’s what you want. I don’t think anyone would insist on us being together if we didn’t want. I know they wouldn’t.” 

“I don’t know what I want,” she admits. “About us. About any of it. What do you want?” 

“I want to help them,” he says seriously. “I want to fight. After that, I don’t much mind. I don’t need to be a king.”

“But you will be. You’ll be a great one.” 

“I think you’ll be a brilliant queen.” 

She feels her face go warm. “Thank you.” 

“Are you going to fight?” 

She takes a moment to consider, swallows hard, and nods. “I am.” She glances up. The night is ablaze with stars now, tumbling down to the horizon like diamonds. “It’s beautiful here. I couldn’t not fight for that.” 

“I know,” he says, but he’s not looking at the stars. “It is beautiful.” 

He slips his hand into hers and, as a kind of apology for her sharp words this morning (and because a not very secret part of her isn’t so averse to the “being together” bit of everything after all), she threads their fingers together and leans her head against his shoulder, and listens to the eerie sound of what might be a dryad song carried on the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm tempted to write some more in this AU; it's such an ambitious crossover and I kind of love it


	13. task force

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; Peeta is given a mission

He didn’t want this. 

He loved her.

But this was his mission. She was his mission. He knew the consequences. It would be worse for everyone if he didn’t go through with it.

He could hear her breathing, loud and sharp, just beyond the corner of the wall. The sound nearly broke his resolve, but considering the alternative, there was no other option. He clenched his jaw. 

Katniss used to tell him that his stealth was pitiable. If only she could see him now. Along the wall he crept, ever nearer to his unsuspecting prey. Biting his lip, and steadying himself, he rounded the corner and pounced. 

Her screams rent the quiet morning as he grasped her wriggling body in his strong arms. She flailed her fists at his shoulders and kicked her feet but to no avail. He was much stronger, and he hauled her down the corridor, following the noise of the water. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I really didn’t want to do this.”

“Let go!” she wailed. “Please!”

“I wish I could, baby girl,” he sympathized, “… but your mother is right, my willow catkin. You need a bath.” 

“But Papa, I don’t wanna bath!” his daughter complained loudly, trying to divest herself of her towel as Peeta nudged open the door to the bathroom with his foot. Katniss, kneeling by the tub and checking the temperature, sighed with relief as he entered. 

“I hate being the bad guy,” he groused at her as he set their squirming toddler in her arms. Katniss raised a brow at him. 

“Do you want to wash her?” she questioned pointedly. 

“I’m not sure if drenching and covered in soap is how I want to present myself to my customers this morning, no.” 

“Thought so,” she said, scooping a handful of bubbles into Willow’s hand in an attempt to placate her and getting a face full of water and a petulant squeal in return. “Willow!” 

“Besides,” he said, bending to give her a goodbye kiss. “I happen to think the wet shirt look suits you better than it does me.” 

That earns him a splashed pant leg from his wife, but he doesn’t mind, because his point still stands. Mission accomplished, he sets himself to the far less daunting task of making apple-strudels.


	14. recent delivery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; Katniss has something to say

It’s a stormy summer day, rain pattering against the windows, the trees outside swaying in the hard wind, the sound of thunder somewhere beyond the foothills — but the bakery is as cozy as can be, with candles lit on the tables, and the delicious scent of fresh sourdough in the air. 

Katniss fidgets with the front of her dress, curling her fingers in the fabric and releasing it nervously, tapping her boots against the clean wood floor. Peeta’s helping a customer at the counter, happily conversing about a new book shop that’s being built while he bags bread. 

Hurry up! 

“Have a good day, Mr. Mellark,” says the customer and their feet are barely out the door before Katniss is on her own feet and hurrying over to the counter. 

She’d been wracking her brain for a creative way to tell him this, but she’s starting to feel sick to her stomach, and she’s not even sure if she can get the words out. 

“Well, good morning,” Peeta says, smiling and gathering up a sack of recently delivered flour, indicating for her to follow him into the back. “And what can I do for such a lovely young lady today? I’ve just made some orange —”

“I’m pregnant,” she gets out in a little squeak. 

He drops the bag and flour bursts over both of them.


	15. hereditary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon; Katniss's daughter picks a fight

When she is four, she sees something she shouldn't. 

She means to ask Papa to get the cookie jar down from its high shelf; she can't reach it but she can reach the handle of Mama and Papa's bedroom door. Mama hasn't marked her new height on the trim by the stairs and maybe that's why Papa forgot to lock the door. But he didn't lock it. And that's why when she is four she tiptoes into the bedroom just in time to see Papa slam a vase of wildflowers over the footboard, eyes dark and foreign, mouth twisted in a snarl. 

Then Mama is scooping her up from the doorway and carrying her over to Grandpa Haymitch's for playtime and playtime at Grandpa's is good because they throw bread at the geese in the yard and make pictures on the walls of the back room, so she lets the cookies go. And she's so tired when Mama comes to pick her up that night she doesn't think anything of how fragile her Papa is for days after. 

Mama has fragile days too. Of course, when she's fourteen, she understands. And Ash sort of understands. But none of her classmates do. Not really. 

She sits in the back of the class when they have a lecture on the Games, watches her feet. Mama always told her that it was important for everyone to be kinder now, to be better now. But not everyone can change. And some kids are just mean. 

Some kids like Davey Pritcher, who comes up to her on the icy playground and shoves her thermos out of her hand. A murmuring goes up from the other students and someone tries to pull Davey back, but she sets her teeth and looks up at him.

"What do you want?" 

"Your parents are sick," Davey says. 

"Davey," says someone, "leave her be." 

"Oh come on," he says, "everybody says they're heroes or something but they're not." 

"Shut up, Davey," she says. "You don't know anything about it."

"I know enough," he sneers. "I know your parents are dangerous crazies." But she's heard enough. Davey's big and mean, but she's got her father's strength and her mother's quick feet, and detention is absolutely worth him skidding across the icy concrete with a mouth full of blood and a broken nose. 

"You never know, Davey," she spits, "it might run in the family."


	16. passing fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> canon; written to counteract some anon negativity about our boy Peeta on tumblr

I wake feeling a bright, cold sunrise on my skin and hear the animated scratching of a charcoal pencil against paper. I smile, knowing what this is about.

“I hope you’re taking artistic liberties with that,” I tease without opening my eyes.

I expect a sarcastic, flirtatious comment back, something about how my matted hair look is, in fact, “deeply seductive” — and I’m startled when he answers in a hollow undertone.

“I’m not drawing you.”

I open my eyes. The sheets pool around his middle and his knees prop up his sketchbook in front of him. He scores the paper in frenzied strokes, agitated spirals, and sharp punctuations. I can’t make sense of what he’s drawing—it’s a whirlwind of gray—but I know it’s something indicative of his mental state.

I sit up and slowly ease my thighs to bracket his, my arms to enfold his torso. I rest my head against his back, where uneven ridges bear proof of innumerable beatings. I nuzzle my nose against a particularly bad one on his shoulder and ask:

“What is it?”

He taps his temple with a jabbing finger and I stop his hand before he can hurt himself.

“He’s talking a lot,” Peeta says with some difficulty. “Telling me … stupid things … but …” He snarls in frustration and scribbles a haphazard circle that whorls off the edge of the page. 

The mutt in his head who feeds him lies. That’s who he means. Not-Peeta.

“What is he telling you?” I inquire calmly.

“He’s … he’s telling me that if … if Gale had come back … came back … you’d have wanted him…”

I’m not alarmed by this revelation. This is not a new fear. In fact, it’s one of Not-Peeta’s standbys. A year or two ago, the mention of my once best friend would’ve sent a lancing of pain through me, but now, I only feel the dull ache of guilt. Not for Gale, but at the thought that I can have left Peeta with any doubts.

_You haven’t_, I remind myself firmly. _He doesn’t doubt you. Not really. He’s sick. It’s like a fever. It’ll pass._

All the same though —

I nudge the art supplies away and climb into his lap to face him, steepling my fingers against his jaw to make him look at me. He blinks rapidly, fighting the conflicting narratives in his head: am I a shellshocked, desperate girl who only settled for him because there was no other option or — ?

“Peeta,” I say. “When they changed the rules at the end of our first Hunger Games, what did I do?”

He mumbles incoherently and I repeat the question. “When they changed the rules, what did I do?”

“You … with the … the nightlock,” he answers disjointedly.

“That’s right,” I say. “And why would I do that?”

“They … they don’t own us … you wanted to show them.”

“No,” I say. “That isn’t why we did it, Peeta.”

He drops his head onto my chest, groans. It’s been a rough few nights for him. The oncoming winter makes his prosthesis act up and the phantom pains can trigger some of his worst nightmares. I make up my mind that, once he can manage, we’re going up into the hills to spend some time in our cabin: cool breezes and hot tea and close-knit bodies. The woods have a healing power over us. I can’t put a name to it, but I bet Prim could. The thought of my sister sends a bolstering spark through me and I give my husband a slight shake.

“Why were you going to eat the berries, Peeta?” I reframe the question. “Was it just to prove a point?”

Hurt flares in his features, but with the hurt, a wash of blue floods his darkened irises. “Of course not,” he whispers.

“Then why?” I press. We’re getting somewhere.

“Because,” he growls, “Because I’d rather die than live without you.”

“Why?” I push.

“What do you mean why?” His fingers grip onto my hips tight enough to bruise and his manic gaze roves my face, searching for explanations. “You know why!” They’re the words of a sixteen year old boy in a cave, a boy I couldn’t be honest with for such a long time afterwards, but the only person I’m truly honest with now.

“Why?” I’m almost growling too. “Why were you?—why was I?— why were we going to eat the berries?”

“Because I love you, Katniss!” he snaps. “I love you more than anything. More than my own life!”

“Because I love you,” I echo softly, seriously. “Only ever you. How could you think I’d want anyone else?”

He stares at me. His pupils contract, dilate, return to normal. He inhales sharply, like a drowning man gasping for the surface, and then a sob of relief heaves his body. He collapses into me and I give an equally relieved half-laugh as I cradle him close, warm and welcome in my arms.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. I’m struck—as I often am—by the realization that this could never be any other way. I could never imagine Gale here with me. I wouldn’t want to. I bend and kiss the blond curls I love so completely. “It’s okay now. You remembered. You remembered what’s real. You always do.”


	17. cookies for Primrose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How did the cookies get to Katniss’s house without her knowing he was there? I need answers!” I raise you … some form of answer. Not cross-checked closely with the book so could be totally off timeline-wise but we get Peeta and Prim friendship so ...

The game bag is gone from its usual place by the coatrack. My sister is already out in the woods with Gale. This is routine for Sunday. Sundays are hunting days. They don’t need to hunt anymore: a glance around my room with its clean sheets and pretty armoire and smooth, untarnished mirror will tell you that.

But primroses grow close to the fence and katniss flowers grow deep in the trees by the water. So she goes and I stay here, by the screen door in the kitchen, watching the clock tick towards seven-thirty. 

Sundays are baking days too. 

I hear his footsteps before he comes into view. Right on time. 

“Delivery,” Peeta calls through the screen. “Special delivery for a Miss Primrose!” 

I smile and hop out of my chair to let him in. “Good morning!” 

“Good morning, Prim.” He’s holding a basket covered with a cloth and I sniff the air curiously. 

“What’s in there?” I ask, clambering up into my chair to get a better view. 

Peeta pokes my nose with a gentle finger. “Wait just a second, you.” He sets the basket on the table. “Now,” he says, mock businesslike, “under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t recommend this for breakfast, but I have to admit, I got a bit carried away this morning.” 

He unveils the baked goods with a flourish and I lean excitedly forward. “Oh, wow,” I breathe. In school, most of the textbooks we have are boring: gray ink on faded paper. There’s one book though (something about the water cycle) that has soft, painted diagrams. I could thumb through it for hours. The frosting flowers on the cookies Peeta has brought - acacia, bellflower, jonquil, red daisies - are ten times more mesmerizing and delicate. I don’t know how I’ll ever bring myself to eat them. 

I’m picking one up and turning it lightly over in my hand when Peeta says: “How is she?” 

I set the cookie down and look at him. His eyes look tired, bone tired, the kind of tired my father used to be after a day in the mines, the kind of tired my mother became after he was gone. Psychical exhaustion, yes, but a kind of desperate, miserable, longing too. 

I want to stamp my foot in frustration. They need to talk. I don’t know what about exactly, but they need to, Peeta and my sister. He never comes over when he knows she’s going to be here. She always glances away when we walk by his house. Can’t they see the irony in what they’re doing? They made it out of the arena by refusing to hurt each other, but as soon as they got home … 

“Prim? How’s Katniss?” 

There’s so much I want to say, but I can’t think of how. I nod and say, “She’s alright. She’s tired.” 

He sighs, shove his hands in his pockets, and gives me a sad smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I know how that feels.” 

“You can see her yourself,” I offer hopefully. “We can have some of my mom’s coffee while we wait for Katniss to get home.” 

He shakes his head. “No, I - no thank you. I should be … well, I should head back. Got some bread for Haymitch, so.” 

“Are you sure?” 

He tucks a curl behind my ear (we have the same fair hair; he could pass for my big brother in a pinch, I think) and makes a valiant effort to rearrange his face into something more cheerful. “Positive.” 

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you for the cookies, Peeta.” I perch up on my knees and kiss his cheek. “Katniss is going to love them.” 


	18. separate bathrooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for @safeinpeetasarms on tumblr; prompt: Katniss and peeta giving their kids a bath and then after the kids have gone to bed, having their own bath time; set in the Special Tea/Orange Juice universe (or really just any modern AU friends-to-lovers universe you like); also I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that I didn’t have “Lover” and “Paper Rings” on repeat while I was writing it - enjoy!

There were lots of reasons Katniss put her foot down and made the decision to move, but the trip to the emergency room had been the final straw.

The cozy apartment was a dream for a pair of newlyweds, workable for a couple with an infant, and rapidly becoming a hazard zone for a young family of four with an energetic six and two year old …

… but it was their first home, and it was near Peeta’s work, and they had made some of their best memories there, and for those things Katniss could overlook the crayon drawings on the baseboards and the way she routinely whacked her elbows against the doorframe in their packed laundry room, and the plush animals that showed up in kitchen cabinets or were violently suctioned from under rugs by the vacuum.

What did her in was the bathroom.

Bath_room. _

Just the one. They should have seen it as the design flaw it was from the start but they were young and in love and disinterested in floor plans.

Gone were the days of leisurely soaks and long, hot showers. Now came the days of tear free shampoo and drenched floors and barely having enough time to scrub your face in the morning before “Mommy, I need to go bathroom!”

The incident happened on their anniversary. Eight years. Katniss was determined to make it a peaceful, romantic evening if it killed her. And for a moment, it had seemed like she might just pull it off. The kids were at grandma’s, the wine was poured and the macaroni was fixed. (Ever since the night he’d slipped up and told her he loved her, Peeta always insisted on anniversary macaroni, though they’d switched from microwave to homemade with smoked cheddar and breadcrumbs). When her husband got home from work, he looked like he just might cry with appreciation. 

By the time they got around to her final treat of the evening, a bubbly candlelight bath, she was thoroughly congratulating herself.

“I think I did good,” she announced, as she sank down beneath the cloud of perfumed suds.

“Yeah, I’d say you did,” he laughed as he tossed his belt aside. He held out his hand for a high five, which she obliged with a wet palm.

“Okay, quit playing around and c'mere,” she’d ordered playfully.

“Yes, ma’am.” And he’d put one foot in the tub.

She doesn’t know how she missed it when she was clearing up. She isn’t entirely convinced it didn’t materialize out of nowhere to ruin her perfectly good anniversary.

In any case, the toy truck was there, somehow, and somehow, of course, inevitably, her husband managed to slip on it. Which could’ve been funny, were it not for the fact that there was nowhere to fall but into porcelain.

He’d managed a single curse on his way down and she’d managed a tiny, frozen squeak of dismay.

Then there was a crash, blood, lots more cursing, an ambulance, stitches, mandatory bed rest, lots of confused crying from the kids, and the impassioned hurling of the toy truck into the apartment complex’s dumpster. All of which culminated one morning in Katniss making herself a strong cup of coffee and propping open her laptop to start the hunt for a new place.

“You’ll hear no pushback from me,” Peeta said when she pitched the idea to him. “What’re we looking at?”

“Space,” she’d said. “More space.”

Five months later, they’ve unloaded the last box. It’s out of the city, has two stories, a backyard, separate bedrooms for the kids, a big kitchen for Peeta, and a porch with a swing for Katniss to write on. Best of all, it has three whole bathrooms, so that after they’ve celebrated with ice cream, it’s the least stressful thing in the world to clean the babies up. In fact, it’s more than not stressful. It’s fun.

Peeta makes his most valiant effort to shampoo their squirmy toddlers while Katniss somewhat impedes his progress by piling up bubble castles around Willow and making Ash shriek in delight by pretending her hand is a shark that’s going to pinch his toes. By the time the kids are clean, the whole family is sore-ribbed from laughter.

Katniss bundles her son up in a towel and kisses all over his sweet, chubby face until Willow complains of being left out, and then she peppers every freckle on her daughter’s cheeks with love.

“Alright, troublemakers,” she says, sweeping a child onto each hip. “Let’s get out of Daddy’s way so he can mop up your mess.”

“Oh thanks,” Peeta mock grumbles, but he’s already drying the tile. “How kind of you.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” she calls over her shoulder as she goes to put Willow and Ash to bed. They’re worn out from the excitement of moving and happily snuggle under their comforters.

“Mommy loves you,” Katniss tells them each. “More than anything in the whole world.”

Willow smiles. “We love you more, Mommy.”

“Nope,” Katniss coos as she closes the door softly, blowing a kiss as she does so. “Not possible.”

She yawns and stretches (some of those boxes were really heavy) as she meanders down to the new master bedroom. There’s not much in here: they’ve just assembled the bed and unpacked their toiletries. But she did promise her husband she’d make it up to him.

She runs a bath (clawed feet! a beautiful silver faucet!) and while it heats up, gets a bottle and two glasses.

“Anniversary part two,” she murmurs to herself as she steps into the water and pours the wine. “This time with fewer injuries.”

“What’s with fewer injuries?” Peeta ruffles his own hair as he comes into the bathroom. “Oh, hello,” he says as he sees her. “Is this you making it up to me?” He sits on the edge of the tub and cups her chin gently but she raises her eyebrows at him.

“Oh no you don’t,” she reprimands, flicking her foot to splash him. “Get in here. Carefully,” she adds as he unbuttons his shirt. “I do not want a repeat of last time.”

“This tub,” he notes, as he climbs in without incident, “is huge.”

“All the better for us,” she says, clinking their glasses together. “I kinda like you.”

“How old are you?” he laughs, rubbing circles on her knee.

“Hey, I just moved into my first house with the love of my life. Let me be a teenager for a second.”

He smiles wickedly. “Well, in that case,” he teases, taking her wine from her. “We’ll have none of that.”

“Aw, no, wait,” she protests with a grin, chasing after it. He leans back to set the glasses on the vanity and she flops defeatedly against his chest.

“But,” he says, turning to capture her lips, “as I happen to kinda like you too, we will have plenty of _this_.”

Separate bathrooms they may have, but the floor ends up covered in bathwater anyway. 


	19. goddess and the baker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for @kleeklutch (based on this post, because, yes, it is an Everlark AU waiting to happen)

“Is it overkill? It feels like overkill.” 

He raises his hands like he’s framing a photograph, then lets them fall to his hips, critically appraising his gleaming new storefront. 

“Are you telling me I’m not a goddess?” She affects deep offense. 

“Never,” he says. “I wouldn’t dare.” 

“So what’re you worried about?” She loops her arms around his middle and stands up on her tiptoes to rest her chin agains his shoulder. “It looks great, honey.” 

“Yeah?” He pats her hands at his waist. “I mean, I’m pretty proud of it. Just kind of thought you’d think I was being too sentimental.”

“Peeta, I’m a songwriter. Sentiment is my literal job.”

“It does kinda read like a song title doesn’t it?” he snorts. “I can hear it now. ‘Miss Everdeen’s latest track, Goddess and the Baker, is a delightful blend of modern and rustic, sweet and smoky, just like her.’” 

“Stick to baking and let me handle the concept albums,” she laughs. 

“So you don’t think it’s overkill?” he asks. 

“Oh, it’s overkill,” she says. “No, it’s definitely overkill. But,” she adds as she kisses his neck, “I love it.”


	20. a way with words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss gets some creative input

She thrums her pencil against the sketchbook in front of her, the rhythm of a half-remembered tune they leaned in music assembly. She knocks her foot absently against the base of the kitchen table, reaches for her tea, and takes a hot sip, then rereads her last sentence, frowning as she does.

“Peeta,” she calls. “Can you come take a look at this?”

“Course.” Her husband sets down the plate he’s washing and shuts off the sink. He pulls up a chair beside her and hoists her easily into his lap.

“I can’t get this last paragraph right.” She points to it and slumps back against his chest as he skims what she’s written. 

“‘But his arms are there to comfort me…’ ‘On the night I feel that thing again…’ Is this how you’re ending it?”

“For now,” she says. “I think. I think it would be a good place to end. Tell whoever—whoever ends up reading it ten, fifty, a hundred years from now—that we made it.”

“I like that,” he agrees. “That’s beautiful, Katniss. Told you you were a poet.”

“No, but that’s the problem,” she laments. “I can’t — I can’t figure out how to phrase it.” 

“Phrase what?” Even with her back to him, she can tell he’s being purposefully dense. She can feel his smile.

She sighs and tosses her hands in the air. “You know what.”

“Oh, you mean this?” His mouth at her throat. “Or this?” He toys with the delicate amber pendant at her collarbone. “Or this?” His fingers start to wander further south, skate along the front buttons of her dress. “You’re not going to tell them about that?” He says it with the slightly dark humor of someone whose every move was once catalogued for anyone to see.

“Obviously not,” she says, leaning her head back against his shoulder to look at him. “That’s private.” Softer. “That’s ours. Just ours.”

His hand stops teasing and comes up to touch her face, lightly tracing her lips and her cheek. She closes her eyes and takes a deep, contented breath. “I know.”

“But I’m still at a loss.”

“Well,” he suggests, “When I can’t decide what to sketch I just start drawing whatever comes to mind, even if it’s just spirals and lines. I’ll come back to it later and start to see patterns. This spiral could be a blackberry bramble or that line could be the beginnings of a damselfly. Could you do that with words?”

She nods and sits up. “Maybe. Let me try.”

She turns a page and jots down the words that come to her. Some cramped neatly in a list, some splashing across the page in wide letters. Peeta watches with interest, rubbing the small of her back.

Hunger. Overtaken. Inevitable.

Survival. Rage. Fire.

Hope. Rebirth. Spring.

She taps her pencil against her mouth. “I think … I think I may have something.”

She scribbles it down in a messy frenzy, to get the images to paper before she loses them. It’s a shorter paragraph than she thought it would be, but it seems right.

“How about that?”

She watches his face as he reads it, mouthing some of the words. A flush of pink colors his features.

“What? What is it?”

“It’s — uh,” he says, sounding choked. “It’s just … the way you talk about me sometimes, Katniss.”

She caresses his curls. “Don’t worry, I say plenty of negative things about you in earlier chapters.”

He laughs and pinches her hip. “Minx.”

She kisses his temple. “I love you,” she says.

“You’re still a minx.”

“It’s a good ending,” she whispers. “Real or not real?”

He takes her hand over the book, fingers brushing against the word that is his answer.

“Real.” 


	21. cottontail

Insistent nudging against his face wakes him. He peeks open one bleary eye to creamy fur and a pink nose. He reaches up to give the cat a sleepy scratch. The light playing at the edges of his vision is dim. It stays darker for longer here, in the deep of the forest, but even at that he’d guess it’s about five.

“Hmm,” he yawns. “I don’t think it’s quite time yet, Cottontail. Don’t worry. I won’t forget your breakfast.”

Most mornings, that word sets her purring and happily prancing away to curl up against Katniss, satisfied in the knowledge that cold chicken will be on the way in due time. Except this morning, she doesn’t. Instead of a purr, he gets a sharp, urgent meow, pitched higher than her usual quiet trills.

“Don’t be greedy,” he chides, turning away.

A paw swipes at his chin.

“Hey!” he reprimands. “No ma’am.”

Another swipe and a louder, angrier meow.

“Okay, no.” He sits up and plucks the cat off of him. Or tries to at least. Her claws dig into his shirt. “What has gotten into - ?”

That’s when he notices the other side of the bed is empty. Ordinarily he might think his wife has just gone out for a hunt, but the cat obviously knows otherwise. He’s out of bed in a flash, strapping on his leg. Cottontail doesn’t wait. She darts up the sturdy ladder that leads up into the loft of their forest home. He follows her, half-tripping in his haste, to see —

Blood. There’s blood everywhere. Dark red splashed up the canvases he stores along the low wood eaves.

It’s only after he’s cried out that he realizes there’s blue too, dribbling down an easel leg. Purple is smeared in a streak over the floor. An entire can of squash yellow spills out under the circular window mounted into the far wall of the studio.

It’s not blood. Not blood. It’s paint.

Katniss is lying in a pile of drop cloths, breathing heavily, like a wounded animal. Drying paint soaks her nightgown and mats her hair. Her fingers are clutched to her mouth, staining her lips with expensive pigment.

“Katniss.” He kneels beside her and brushes some sticky strands of paint from her forehead, testing her reaction. Her eyes are blank, but at his touch, a whimper forces its way up her throat. “Okay, okay.” Her body is limp in his arms as he lifts her out of the mess she’s made and holds her against his chest. The room is still warm with the residual heat of the fire they made at dinnertime, but she’s trembling like she has frostbite. Cottontail mews nervously, pacing in front of them.

“You’re alright,” he repeats, rocking her. “You’re alright. I’m here and you’re alright.”

Her hand, resting limply against her thigh, snaps to his shirt and threads it in a tight grasp, anchoring herself.

“That’s right,” he encourages. “You’re here. You’re here with me.”

She takes a short, sharp inhale, then a long, quavering exhale.

“Your name is Katniss Everdeen,” he reminds her. “You are going to be thirty years old next spring. You are a hunter and a storyteller. You live in a house by the river.”

She makes a faint noise of acknowledgement in her throat. Cottontail puts one dainty paw on Peeta’s leg and meows imploringly at Katniss. Slowly, the fingers that aren’t latched onto Peeta’s shirt reach out and lightly trace a fluffy ear.

“That’s our cat. Her name is Cottontail,” Peeta continues. “My name is Peeta. I’m your husband.” He kisses the crown of her head. “I love you.”

Then he waits. Waits for her to come back to them, every now and again murmuring her name.

“Just keep calling me,” she told him once. “When I get lost. I’ll follow the sound of your voice. I’ll come back to you. I promise.”

She’s never broken that promise. He knows she’s found him again when her deadweight limbs stir and she twines around him: thighs around his middle, arms around his neck, touching her paint smeared lips to his heart, as if the mere contact will get hers back to a steady rhythm.

“There we go,” he says. “That’s my girl.”

“I’m sorry,” she chokes. “Your beautiful paints…” 

“Are not important,” he says gently. “What happened?”

“I — I dreamed.”

“Which one?”

“New one.”

“Do you want to tell me?” 

“Yes. Just not yet.” She wipes her forehead and leaves a pear colored splotch. “I made a such mess. ”

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He swings her up bridal style and carefully makes his way back downstairs, where he gets her out of her ruined nightgown and lays her on their bed. She gives a weak, grateful moan and pulls his pillow to her. Cottontail hops up beside her and rasps her pink tongue over Katniss’s nose.

“I think Cottontail’s got it handled,” she mumbles with the barest flicker of a smile.

“Keep at it Cottontail,” Peeta says, striking a match to start the fire. “I’ve got a lot of water to warm.”

By the time he’s heated enough water, the sun is rising, turning the river to a dancing ribbon of light. Cool, late summer wind makes the trees rush and whisper, as though they’re wishing good morning to each other. Katniss is dozing and Cottontail, like Buttercup before her, curls protectively close. 

“You’re a good girl, Cottontail,” Peeta tells her, lifting Katniss up again. “I should never have snapped at you.” 

Cottontail fixes him with a slow-blinking gaze and chirps a soft chirp.

“When did you snap at her?” Katniss mumbles as he nudges the front door open with his foot, carrying her outside to where he has brought the big copper washing tub, nestled in the grass on the riverbank.

“She was trying to tell me you needed help. I didn’t understand,” he explains. “I thought she wanted food.”

Katniss takes a deep, relieved breath as he eases her into the bath. Steam is rising from it, mirroring the mist that rises from the river. He kneels beside her with a cloth.

“Fortunately,” he says, plashing water onto her skin, “this kind of paint should come right out.”

Katniss’s head lolls against the edge of the tub, eyes gazing up at the pale heathery sky as Peeta bathes the paint away: arms down to fingertips and thighs to toes. Stomach and breastbone and neck.

“You left me,” she breathes at last, as he’s washing her face, very tenderly, and punctuated with the occasional peck of his lips.

“What?”

“In my dream.” She stays his ministrations and watches his expressions as she speaks, drinking him in. “There was a train. My father boarded it. Prim. Finnick. All of them. And you. You boarded it. I was begging you not to go. But you did anyway. You left me.”

“I could never,” he vows, a simple fact. “I will never leave you.”

“I know,” she coos, bringing a wet hand to his cheek. “I know you won’t. I couldn’t remember it in the dream. I remember it now.”

Birds are singing daybreak in earnest when he lets her hair out of its gnarled braid, cradles the back of her head while he soaps and brushes the knots back to a smooth tumbling of rich black. When she says she can stand on her own strength again, he helps her out of the water and they pour the washing tub out among the reeds.

There’s no one to see for miles, so she feels no shame standing in the sunlight to dry for a long moment before they go back inside and she climbs back onto the bed.

His heart thumps at the sight of her sprawled out comfortably on the blankets, instead of contorted in on herself in pain. She holds out her arms plaintively to him. He falls into them gladly.

She’s warm from the bath and the spicy scent of ginger soap lingers about her. He’s never seen the point of liquor, when he can get drunk on these sensations alone. “Can you go back to sleep?” he asks, thumb grazing her brow.

“I think so,” she says, tucking into his side. “If you stay here.”

“Where else could I ever want to go?”

There’s an impatient meow from the breakfast table and Peeta smiles. “Though first, I think I owe Cottontail some cold chicken.”


	22. flowers for peeta: spring

when spring comes we clear the cobwebbed corners of our minds / sweep away the gray dust of winter that gathers there / the porch table is set with honey and bread and imported citrus at breakfast / and my lover curls an orange peel under her finger / then nips lightly at the skin / making a face at the sour taste

the spigot at the side of the house is rusty / the ground beneath it is worn away to mushy mud / she swipes water onto her face in a splash and gasps at the cold / as though she didn’t except it / though the pipes have been icy for months / I want that gasp in my mouth / I spin her close by her elbow and get my wish 

she comes home with onions for soup / and she is singing a song for me / or what will be a song for me / when she is satisfied with it / she splays my hand over hers when I meet her at the front step / large, pale against dark, slender / both burnt / she leans her head against the doorframe and tries out a line of sweet nothings / hums a tune to check that the rhythm matches / and fixes an oxeye daisy into my shirt button 

purity, I think, caressing the white petals / same as a pearl / I smile / but I don’t tell her I know / not yet / I tuck her hip against my side as I lead her in to start dinner / and ask her to tell me all about her day


	23. fairy queen

when autumn comes we gather our memories / both of love and of losing / and scurry them inside like busy squirrels / to lock them safe in a hope chest / until next year 

in the pale of an early waking / I light a candle / sit in front of our tarnished mirror to wash my face / and comb my hair / and a jar of blue sage / sits at wrist height beside me 

I make tea and cut the raisin cake I hid in the cabinet yesterday / we have one fine china plate / chipped, pink patterned edges / Prim picked it out / years and years ago / I make it as nice a presentation as I can 

our home is held in amber / the sun refined through red leaves / I strip out of my nightgown / fold it to the faded lace hem / set to pinning the sage in my hair / add a drop or two of bergamot scent to my / temple / breast / stomach / appraise my reflection in the window 

not quite the woodland creature I hoped for / one too many splotches and stains that could only have been made by human cruelty / but I can’t help a smile / at the contrast of the sky colored sage / against my dusk skin and frost eyes / glossy in a cider gold dawn / Cinna would call me lovely / and I think I am

my breakfast treats neatly placed on the side table / I burrow into the blankets like a fox to her den / and curl against my bedmate / trace the riot of ashy curls skating over his brow / you need a haircut, my love, I think / but that can wait until tomorrow

tonight there will be a festival in town / one last hurrah before the cold truly sets in / a dance and a dinner on the cobblestones and in the storefronts / we will take a lantern and pick our way out of the forest / and into the circle of hard-won joy 

but this morning / we’ll hold our own celebration / secret and quiet / and ten years in the making / I think of that rainy day / a decade ago / and of a promise by the fire / I don’t remember what I said / I just know I meant every word

I call his name / once, twice / decide that if he doesn’t stir I’ll let him sleep / but his hand absently / involuntarily, almost / finds my side / his thumb grazes the curve from waist into hip / and he sighs a good morning / blinking those feathery eyelashes 

oh / I can hear it in his caught breath when he sees me / oh 

lovely indeed, I think / but smirk at him as though I don’t know / “what?” I ask

“I think you may be a bit lost” he teases / and though his cheek is apple pink / his fingers tilt my chin to nose at the skin of my throat / “I don’t think that my old bed is any place for a fairy queen” 

I laugh / “I disagree” I say around a half-squeak as a soft kiss turns into a sharp nip / (once his fingers bruised my neck / now I arch my head back trustingly / pleadingly) / “I happen to think it’s the perfect place”

“I have to warn you of something” he says / braces himself on his arms / weight warm over me, hands framing my face / “if you don’t fly away now, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let you leave” 

“silly human boy” I play along / and with a sly move he taught me long ago / when we never thought we’d live so long or so much / I flip us over and pin him down / “who said I’d ever want to leave?” 

we are still finding dry blue sage petals in the sheets and pillowcases for weeks after


	24. flowers for peeta: baby blues

“I’ve picked a place” he tells her / leads her to where the bakery once stood / to the back of his father’s old property / under the scorched trunk of an oak tree / mossier than it was in the days before the war / tiny sky colored flowers / with cloudy white centers / clustering about the roots / “here” he says shakily “I’ve decided here is where I want to remember them” / “it’s a good place” she says / “blue was my mother’s favorite color, you know” he says / it’s the only gentle thing he’s ever said about that woman / and it makes Katniss’s heart hurt / she splays his palm out / holds it against the tree’s trunk, pinioned encouragingly by hers / he closes his eyes / she can’t imagine what he’s thinking / saying to his parents and his brothers / lost somewhere among the ashes of the district / she sets her cheek against his shoulder / and runs her hand up and down his arm / until he straightens again / wiping tears from his face / “you don’t have to let go” she tells him tenderly, thinking of her father and Prim “you only have to go on” / his lips quiver / as they peck against her forehead / but he heaves a relieved sigh just the same / “and my love” she reminds him “if there’s one thing we’ve proven we’re good at, it’s that” / and when she bends back down and plucks a flower to tuck behind his ear / she is rewarded with a faint smile


	25. flowers for peeta: morning glory

she has left the laces of the apron hanging loosely at her waist / one stained strap sliding down her shoulder / as she tries to make heads or tails of this walnut bread recipe Delly gave her / a plate and cup are laid out expectantly on the wooden breakfast tray / and her present to him / (a page of dried and pressed morning glories / purple petals prettily entwining the lines of a love song she wrote) / sits beside it / the tea kettle is whistling away on the stove / but she’s tuned it out completely / in her search for the baking soda / and only notices it when the shrill whine is abruptly silenced / “top shelf” comes his voice at her ear / and his hand rights the apron strap / “no” she complains “get out of my kitchen!” / “your kitchen?” he laughs “no, this doesn’t get to be your kitchen until you learn proper baking safety - for instance, what is happening here?” / his fingers loop in the stays of the apron / and with a quick jerk he cinches them tight / making her yelp / and tugs her against him / “like that” he says, toying with her braid “safety hazard” / “go back to bed” she chides, squirming away “and pretend you didn’t see any of this” / he gives one last playful pull on the laces / but does as she says / and when she presents him with breakfast / bread a bit burnt and tea bit over-steeped / and all served with a scowl / he pulls her down and kisses her so soundly / she almost forgets it’s his birthday / and not hers


	26. flowers for peeta: african daisy

“people used to say something strange about your grandmother, you know?” he remarks to her one day / after she’s finished a phone call with her mother / “which one?” / “your mother’s mother” he clarifies / “Grandma Lissy?” / “her, yes” / “and what did they say?” / she sets the phone back in the receiver with a click / and comes back to the window seat where sits / watching the rain that’s been falling / off and on / mostly on / for days / turning the streets of Victors’ Village into a cataract of mud and twigs / she climbs back onto the seat and curls up on her side / head resting on his thigh / “don’t laugh” he says “but they used to say she was a witch” / she can’t help a laugh / “what? my Grandma Lissy, a witch?” / “that’s just what they said” he protests “said she could get flowers and herbs no one’s grown or seen in Panem for decades: moonblooms and African daisies” / “I’ve never heard of them” / “I think that was the point” he admits “I think they’re from somewhere over the ocean” / he gives a shrug and adds “I imagine the whole thing got a bit out of proportion” / “hmm” she muses “and what did you think about all that?” / “I guess,” he considers “back then, I would’ve said my mother and her friends were just being spiteful and suspicious” / “but now?” she raises her brow / “well, see,” he says with a grin “now I’m married to Lissy Abberford’s granddaughter” / his gaze is twinkling with mischief / “and some days I’ll look at those eyes or kiss that mouth” / his thumb runs over her lips / “and I can’t help wondering if there might not be some enchantment that runs in the family after all”


	27. flowers for peeta: apple blossoms

I know it probably won’t happen right away / my mother says it can take a long time even for the healthiest women / but when nearly a year comes and goes / without so much as a false alarm / I begin to worry my body is broken / that it was only ever meant for dealing death / not for cradling life

I voice my fears to the wooden support beams of our roof one lazy, early morning / expect Peeta to soothe me with his clever and comforting words / what I don’t expect is for him to shakily wonder aloud if it’s his fault / if they did something to him / when they tore him apart and remade him to ruin me 

(Snow may win the Games yet / he doesn’t need an Arena / doesn’t even need to be alive anymore / to take our children from us) 

I can take my own pain / but I can’t take Peeta’s / I cling to him until the sun comes up / and the sick feeling goes out of both of us

then I get up / knot my boots / a funny, rough contrast to my soft, swishing nightgown / and with a sense of defiance I’ve not felt since I threw the last of the white roses into the blazing hearth at my old house / lead us to a favorite spot of ours / where a cluster of apple trees blooms / (I think, long ago, when this land was cultivated, it was an orchard) (I imagine the place is happy having people around again) 

we spend the morning there / a tangle of dappled light / lacy flowers a bower above us / my head thrown back in the moss and fallen petals / singing out my own love song to accompany the birds 

even if we can’t have what we so badly want / we have each other / we have this / we won this / and there’s no one here to change the rules on us anymore 

and a week, another week, a third week later / we get out our plant book / and Peeta pencils in a nine month calendar with trembling, elated fingers / and I steady them with my own as he watercolors in a border of apple blossoms around the month I’m due


	28. flowers for peeta: pansy

when Willow was four / she had yanked on the hem of her mother’s dress / and informed her solemnly that the “flowers in the boxes are sad” / and they did look a bit pathetic / wilted and waterlogged in their window ledge planter / but there hadn’t been time yet to tidy them up since winter / “want to help me make them look nice again?” Katniss had asked, propping her daughter on one hip / and it quickly became apparent to both her parents that Willow had a greener thumb than either of them / from that year on, it was her special task / every spring / to pick out the seeds, get the soil and the shovels, and make the bakery storefront look colorful again 

when Willow is fourteen / after several years of alyssum and bluebells / she decides to surprise her family with something fancier / she saves her money / and sends a mail order for a treat / an expensive, white rose bush / to plant by the porch / and can’t understand why / when she proudly unveils it to her parents / their words of praise don’t seem genuine / in fact, they both seem winded / and agitated / for the rest of the day 

she cries about it to Grandpa Haymitch later / and cries some more when he sets down his tonic water and explains the problem / she gets up before anyone else the next morning / and though it almost immediately starts to rain as soon as she sets foot outside the door / she gets her shovel from the shed and runs to the bakery / starts to dig up the roses one angry hack at a time / imagines she is hacking up the awful, awful man who hurt her parents so much

she’s drenched to the skin when she returns home / and covered in dirt / but she feels good / the house is quiet and cozy in the late morning / Ash is reading at the kitchen table / and Mama and Papa are sleeping in / and Willow takes the family book down from its special place over the hearth / and thumbs through the pages / as rain drums gently on the roof / and Ash’s sock feet brush against the floor 

she doesn’t read the memory entries / she wants Mama beside her when that day comes / but she does dance her damp fingers over the first part of the book / before they started to paste in pages / the neatly sketched herbs and flowers / the medicinal recipes / over Papa’s paint strokes / Mama’s neat, cramped handwriting 

she smiles when she comes upon one entry / not even an entry / an aside / done in light pencil / as though her parents / much younger then / were sharing secret notes in class / when in fact they were probably right where she and her brother sit now / sock feet and all 

Mama’s writing reads: good morning / (as though she didn’t want to break some peaceful hush) / and Papa’s, in an artist’s wide scrawl: thank you for the flowers, my love 

she studies the flower pressed closest to the words / presumably one of the ones Papa was thanking Mama for / inky with a butter yellow center / pansies 

she sends another mail order / and when the pansies arrive / (in every shade of violet and blue, gold and pearl, rust and blush one can imagine) / on another rainy day / she sets right to work / adorning the bakery / in spite of the weather / invigorated by it / so that when the rain stops and the sunlight washes the storefront / it’s like the jewel bright colors of a fire / burning away even the memory of snow


	29. flowers for peeta: tulips

Ash turns another page in the book / careful not to knock the bowl of peaches at his elbow on the picnic blanket / his father pours from their jar of lemonade / and leans back against the spreading maple / his sister is absorbed in a sketchbook down the gentle grassy slope of the field / and Mama is in town, running an errand / Ash props his chin up on his palm as he skims over the words in front of him / kicking his bare feet in the warm summer air / he knows this story (his family’s story) like the back of his hand now / but he likes to read it again / to get lost in Mama’s sharp, clean prose / and remember how much it took for her and Papa to get to where they are 

he cried the first time his parents sat with him and his sister and helped them understand the Reaping / the Quell / the War 

and he cried the second time when he read the book on his own / but not the third, when he read it aloud to his sister / the third time they smiled at the lovely moments / the glimpses into a time when Mama and Papa were kids too 

the fourth time / they laughed at / and once or twice outright skipped / some of their parents’ awkward romantic moments / (“did Mama have to leave that in here?” his sister had cringed) 

and today / he ends up reliving the story / about the first day of kindergarten / and the girl with a red plaid dress / “your mother is a songbird” Papa loves to say “and you know what, Ash? so are you” / he remembers that incredible, goosebumps moment when he discovered the birds stop singing for him / like they did for Grandpa Jack / and like they do for - 

“Mama!” his sister cries happily / she may be thirteen / and he may be nine / but they’re never going to call the woman coming down into the Meadow / (in a sunny yellow top / and ratty old boots) / anything but that 

Mama has a splendid bouquet of tulips in her arms / the stems nicely twined up with burlap and string / “good morning, my darlings” Mama says, coming to sit against Papa on the picnic blanket / and carding her fingers through her son’s curls / as Willow scampers up from her artwork to admire the flowers 

“I thought you were haggling with Rooba over venison” Papa laughs / as Mama unties the tulips / “I was” Mama reports “and when I got the price I wanted I took some of the money to buy these” / she hands them out to each person / purple for Willow / “to practice your watercolors” / yellow for Ash “for your piano” / and red for Papa (with a peck on the lips) / “for everything”


	30. flowers for peeta: chamomile

though my daughter is already dreaming / a lullaby comes to my lips / as I spark a match against the table leg / though Peeta complains that it will leave a mark / and light four wax candles / one for each window / and one for the table / to stand as sentinels in the moonless autumn night 

_I wait for you / like winter waits for spring _

Peeta loves autumn / the cold, cozy days in / the colors he laments of never being able to capture right / the spices and scents of ginger, cardamon, and pumpkin / but I have always been partial to spring 

outside, in the forest, a coyote yips and yaps / and an owl inquires repetitively / inside, at the table / I unfurl the bunting I’m working on / and listen to the homey creak of the cradle / as Peeta taps his foot to keep it rocking / his charcoal pencil scratching away at a card to Annie / asking if she and Finn will come to visit for the New Year / Willow sleeps on / her tranquil, contented breathing is the sound I cherish most in the world 

_to wake the earth / with lovely living things _

Peeta takes a sip of the tea I prepared / chamomile from my mother / sent with a note of love on the last train / I sent her back photos of her granddaughter / and the tiny blue ribbon from the baby’s first blanket / one she has long since grown out of / I am working on the new one / pale as the primroses that bloomed more exquisitely than they’ve ever bloomed last spring / when she was born / as though the aunt she’ll never know except in memories and sketches / was wishing her a welcome to the world 

_bring me colors / bring me flowers / bring me rain and bring me sun _

I look down at the head of the cradle / where a twining of flowers is painted / pastel against wood / katniss flowers with their redcurrant hearts and sunny dandelions / each side of the cradle is a windswept whirl of apple blossoms / and at the foot / the leaves of her namesake / for my father / and for Rue 

I look up at my husband / gentle, funny boy / who I stay for / and who stays / always, always / who gave me my daughter / I take his hand / he smiles / soft / almost absentminded / and doesn’t even need to look up from his work to kiss my hand / lips warm from his drink / we hold fast for a moment / the simple gold bands he convinced me to wear about six years ago / clicking together / then let go / contentedly returning to our pleasant work / safe in our own cradle of light / in the quiet, secret haunt of the woods 

_oh but bring me / my beloved / or of these / I’ll have none _


	31. cradle and bunting

At nine in the morning, when there’s a lull of customers at the bakery, Katniss gathers up the courage to say it. To sing it, rather, light and clear, as she plates a loaf of iced lemon bread. 

“Oh I’m making a cradle / the prettiest you’ve ever seen. I’ll craft it of birch wood / and paint it all in green.”

When Peeta doesn’t respond except to say that’s a nice song and where is it from? she takes a deep breath and tells him she wrote it. His smile is dimpled and bright and her heart thumps excitedly … before he gives her lips a peck and meanders away to get some powdered sugar.

She gapes at him. 

But tries again at two, when they take a lunch break. 

“And I’m making a bunting / as soft and cool as a cloud. And it should be done by springtime / when the flowers come up from the ground.”

“Oh!” he cries. 

“Yes,” she says quietly, reaching for his hand. 

Only to have his knee almost hit her in the face as he jumps up from the front stairs. “Flowers! I’ve got to apply those fondant flowers to Lettie Heartsop’s cake!” 

The screen door slams and Katniss stares out at the road in complete incredulity.

At ten, when they’re in bed, her head resting against his chest as he reads a book, she decides to dispense with the subtleties.

“I’ve made cradle and bunting / but I think there’s something I’ve missed. Yes, I think I’ll need a baby / to enjoy all of this.”

“You know,” he says, “that tune is infectious. It’s been stuck in my head all day.”

He hums a line or two, thumb absently stroking her cheek with the hand that isn’t holding the book. She frowns angrily, but can’t quite bring herself to shrug away his touch. 

“I’ve made cradle and bunting,” he sings in an undertone as he turns a page, “but I think there’s something I’ve missed.” 

“You don’t say.” 

“Yes, I think I’ll need a — ” 

The book drops out of his hand, onto the floor, and he looks down at her with blue eyes wide and rapidly turning teary. 

“And there it is,” Katniss sighs. 

Not giving him a chance to stammer through whatever apologetic litany he’s about to, she swings herself on top of him and kisses his stupid, overjoyed face. 

“So much for being sentimental,” she grumbles, and hauls his nightshirt over his head.


	32. painting scars

He finds her in their bedroom, staring at herself in the antique mirror. She passes a hand over the healing pink patches surgically grafted onto her skin after the fire. Her gray eyes are sad. 

“I feel so ugly,” she says quietly. 

When he turns and walks out of the room without a word, she sinks to the floor and puts her head in her hands, crossing her bare legs and letting her dark hair drape her. 

He returns only a moment later, with a bundle of soft new sheets in his arms and a box of paints. He stretches the sheets over the bed and arranges the paints and brushes. 

“Lie down,” he instructs and she’s so confused that she does. 

He stretches out beside her and begins to work. 

They stay there for the next five hours, not speaking. When he’s is finished, her body has become a painting, traced on the patterns of her scars. There are red birds flying over her torso, waterlilies flowering over her breasts and abdomen, strands of pearls circling up her legs, bluebells on her feet, autumn leaves on her shoulders, stars on her arms and strawberries on her neck. 

Her face, he leaves bare. 

“What do you care about scars? You have them because you are brave and strong and you have a kind heart.” 

He presses a kiss to her forehead, soft as sunlight. 

“And you are so beautiful, my love.”


	33. flowers for peeta: baby's breath

“look!” / a gold-green light glows for a blink in the grove / where two children / (because aren’t they? can’t they be, just for a while?) / are lying on a picnic blanket / fingers sticky with wild berries / watching dusk come in / deepening the shadows of the trees / coaxing out the - 

“fireflies!” Katniss gasps “I used to love fireflies!” / “used to?” / as two more, then six, then twelve appear / “before I understood that fireflies meant summer meant the Reaping” she explains, quietly but without the usual edge of pain / pain is far from this place / “tell me” Peeta says / turning onto his side and running his hand down her ribcage and stomach as she speaks / smoothing out the carmine dress she’s wearing / patterned with white blossoms / baby’s breath he thinks / she’s brought those to him before 

“my father told me” she reminisces “that they weren’t bugs at all / he told me they were fairies that lived deep in the mountains for most of the year / but in summer / came down into the forest for a dance” 

“I love your father’s stories” her boy sighs “they must have made your home so bright” / “they did” she says “they do” / “tell me another?” / she considers / then smiles, props herself up on her arms to look slyly down at him

“once upon a time” she says “there was a sharp-toothed vixen / a she fox / with a long red tail and delicate paws / she was the best hunter in the woods / and all the mice and rabbits and squirrels feared her”

“I’m sure they did” he laughs / “well” she goes on “all the mice and rabbits and squirrels but one / one tiny, bold mouse had the audacity to fall in love with the sharp-toothed vixen”

“the audacity, hmm?” / “the very nerve of him” she agrees “he would bring her flowers / some flowers four times his size / and he thought nothing of her sharp teeth and claws” / “I think he rather liked them” he teases, bringing a hand to trace her mouth / she nips at him playfully 

“and did he manage to win her over with the flowers?” he asks / “not with the flowers, no” she says, shaking her head “but one, cold, awful winter / when the vixen was sad alone in her nest / the brave mouse found her / curled up right beside her heart

‘what are you doing here, little mouse?’ the vixen asked ‘don’t you know I could hurt you?’ / ‘I don’t care’ said the mouse ‘I’m going to stay right here until spring comes, curled beside your heart to keep you warm’”

“and in the spring?” he asks / “in the spring” she says “the vixen realized she wanted nothing so much as the company of the brave little mouse in her nest / and when the snow melted / she brought flowers to him”


	34. after & after

The first thing she does the next morning is take his hand in hers and hold it up to the light. He sleeps steadily on, snoring, against her shoulder, as she splays his fingers (large, pale, burnt) over hers (slight, dark, just as burnt) and admires the contrast. 

A ruin. Most people would think that was the summation of what they were. Losing bits and pieces of friends, family, themselves to the twisted mind of the Games and the Capitol, only to be thrown back out like the broken dolls she once saw staring in a faded lace blue dress in town. 

A ruin. Katniss laughs softly and looks down at her dreaming boy. They were real, the two of them, very much so. She affirms this with pressing a kiss to the slight callused surface of his palm, the curve of his fingers and knuckles. 

His eyes flutter open when she kisses the delicate, scarred skin of his wrist. She feels his pulse stutter against her lips and she smiles. 

When suddenly she is on her back and he is kissing her. Deeply, dreaming, desperately.

He pulls back, and there’s a sense of amazement playing about his eyes, as though he half-expected her to have faded away with the morning dew. She knows the feeling, but she won’t have that kind of doubt around here. If last night proved anything, it’s that she has the right to claim that long-desired luxury of surety. At least in one thing. At least in this. She frowns, mock-accusing. 

“What? Did you think I’d run out on you?”

“No,” he says. Hand frames her face like a priceless painting. 

“You think this was a dream?” Because heaven knows there were at least ten times in the past six hours she thought she was dreaming (heat and skin and real, real, real and she couldn’t stop crying for the longest time after and the thought that Prim would laugh at her and Finnick would tease her and her father would smile a quiet, knowing smile, because he loved her mother just as much as she loves her boy, made her heart, already to the brim, overflow). 

He considers, but shakes his head. “No, not that either. Dreams aren’t ever this good.”

“What then?”

A smile spreads across his face again, and this time, she swears the warmth of them is something to the growing sun of morning.

“You.” 

An intake of breath. A split second decision. The words come out on her exhale.

“May I have you?” 

Was this how her mother felt? All those years ago? Like the sky was in reach and she need only to levitate with his hand in hers? 

It’s a silly question, but needed. 

Peeta’s heart thumps a bit faster. “I-yes.”

“Yes?”

“May I?” His lips are close to hers. 

“What?” 

“Have you?” Her heart stops. And then a laugh bubbles out before she is kissing him in between words.

“Yes, yes, yes!” 

Yes (for the bread) yes (for the pearl) yes (for the primroses). 

And sometime, nearer evening, when hunger (not the kind that keeps them in bed, but urges them out of it, in search of fruit and milk) finds them in the kitchen, she will glance at the fireplace and then back at him, her intent clear.

And sometime, close to midnight, they’ll finish the bread.

And at one twenty-seven on the nose, when they can’t remember the traditional words about having and holding (and anyway, after two arenas and a war, that is sort of a given), she’ll tell him about a yellow flower that saved her life and he’ll tell her about a songbird who saved his. 

And she’ll cover her face with her hands and groan and he’ll tug them away and ask. And some sad, dormant part of her can hear Gale, the Gale she was friends with once, chuckling and saying, “I told you so, Catnip.” 

“I can’t believe this. Married at nineteen.” 

And her boy (her husband) grins. “In our defense, we are madly in love,” he says. 

She shoves him for that, but he’s right, however saccharine and absurd the sentiment is. She can allow for some saccharinity. Comes of being a baker’s wife, she supposes, with a little thrill in her spine. 

And later, she curls against him on the couch, facing the window, and he presses a kiss to her hair, and she reciprocates with one against his throat. And they count their friends in the stars until the sky turns pink.


	35. vixen and mouse

Industrious as a mouse her husband might be, but quiet as one, he is not. She wakes to the sound of knuckles bumping around inside their armoire drawers, prosthetic foot clicking on the floor. He is no doubt trying to be considerate, but he is not succeeding. 

She groans and turns onto her side, scowling at him as she rubs her eyes. He glances over at her and winces. “Morning.” 

“Why are you up this early?” 

“Had an itch to make you honey cake for breakfast.” 

“Don’t try and placate me with food,” she complains, but the prospect of honey cake is an admittedly tempting one. 

“Don’t you know?” he laughs, shimmying a sweater over his head. “The fastest way to appease a fierce vixen is with scraps.” 

“If I were a vixen,” she says, remembering their conversation in the glade last night, “I’d snap you right up, impertinent mouse, to teach you a lesson about disturbing a wild thing in her den.” 

“I said fierce, but I didn’t say wild.” He climbs up onto the bed and pins her on her stomach. She tries to glare at him over her shoulder, but the twitch of her mouth betrays her. “You’re quite domesticated.” 

“I must be, if I let a mouse catch me. How did you manage? I’d hardly notice you scurrying around my paws.” 

“I am an exceedingly patient mouse. I could’ve waited forever for my love to trust me.” 

She softens at that, her body sinking contentedly into the bed, annoyance uncoiling from her spine. You wouldn’t have had to is unspoken in the action. 

“And never forget, cheeky vixen,” he adds in a whisper, with a sharp nip to her ear that makes her laugh and squirm, “you’re not the only creature in this forest who can bite.”


	36. flowers for peeta: pansy (outtake)

school is done at two / and it’s Katniss’s turn to walk the children home today / which is why it alarms him when / at noon / with a creak of the door / the ring of a bell / and the sound of rain boots squeaking on hardwood / his nine year old son pushes into the bakery / soaked to the skin / and slumps into a chair

he grabs the tiny vase of pansies adorning the table / rolling the base around in a distracted, agitated circle

“Ash” Peeta says, half-scared, half-stern, wiping his hands on his apron “what is going on, young man?”

Ash’s eyes are red and his mouth is set in a tight, barely controlled line / he sets the vase down with a loud knock / “I got in trouble with the principal” / “what? how?” / his son has always been the more mild mannered of his two children / kind and tenderhearted, like Katniss

“Ash?“ he repeats / “I threw a book at Lula Martin’s stupid face” Ash blurts furiously / Peeta puts his fingers to his temples, draws them forward to pinch the bridge of his nose before he fixes his son with a frown / he’s no great lover of the Martins / who moved to 12 a few years back / but that doesn’t excuse this

“young man, you know that is completely unacceptable behav — Ash?” / because his son has burst into tears / hard, choking sobs / burying his face in his hands / Peeta kneels beside him / concern replacing chiding

what is it?” / “I threw it at her because … because she called … she called me …” / he doubles over crying / and Peeta draws his son into his arms / “it’s alright” he murmurs “what did she call you?”

Ash wipes his face / “she said I was a mutt”

Peeta’s stomach bottoms out / and any intentions of a continued reprimand are lost / as he holds his son close on the bakery floor / rocking him back and forth

“some people … some people say things they don’t understand … I bet you Lula’s just repeating something nasty she heard somewhere else” / he did / he repeated so many things he didn’t understand when he was five / and eleven / and seventeen even / only he said them on national television / instead of on the playground

“Willow’s read about mutts” Ash says “she says they’re horrible” / “yes” he agrees / (blinking away the sound of smashing glass and a girl’s strangled scream) / “yes they are” 

he squares his shoulders and kisses his son’s hair / “you don’t believe her” he says "you don’t believe a word; you are the furthest thing from a mutt there ever was, do you understand?” / Ash nods and heaves a breath / “yes sir” / “you are the antithesis of mutts” Peeta coos “you and your sister” / Ash wrinkles his nose at the big word and Peeta smiles

“do I have to go back to school?” Ash asks, his mother’s gray eyes looking plaintively up at his father / “not today, no” Peeta promises “I’ll call Mama to come take you home, okay? here, come outside with me”

Ash is as light as his mother, so Peeta scoops him up and carries him out to the porch to breathe in the cool air and watch the rain / Ash leans his head against his father’s and hiccups / calming down / some time Peeta will need to remind his son he’s still not allowed to throw books at people / but he doesn’t trust himself to right now

because right now he’s already planning how he’s going to have a word with the Martins later / maybe several words / and maybe he’ll bring Katniss along / with her bow / for effect


	37. star girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for @576inpanem, based on some headcanons about nicknames

“Papa?” Willow is curled against his side on the porch swing, watching the sun go down beyond the foothills.

Inside, Katniss is washing up the dinner plates, a quiet melody of running water and clinking ceramic drifting through the screen on the front door.

“Yeah?”

“Why do you call me ‘apple blossom?’”

“It’s a nickname, baby girl,” he says.

“I know that,” she says, as though he’s being dense. “But why?”

He considers. He isn’t about to tell his daughter that, in all likelihood, she was conceived in an apple grove, the air dancing with petals and breathless promises.

“Well,” he tells her, truthful, but simplified, “because apple blossoms mean love. And they remind Mama and me of how much we love each other … and how much we love you.”

Willow sighs happily. “That’s nice, Papa.”

“It is, apple blossom.”

“What about Mama’s nickname?”

“Mama doesn’t have a nickname, baby girl.”

“No,” Willow insists. “She has one. You called her ‘my star girl.’ Why?”

“You’re an observant little lady,” Peeta says, poking his daughter’s nose and making her giggle. “I suppose … ” He tugs her into his lap. “Do you know what a star is, willow catkin?”

“No.”

“It’s a silver fire, burning far, far, far away in the sky.”

“How far away?”

“Further than the clouds,” he says. “And further than the moon and the sun.”

“Wow,” Willow breathes. “Really far.”

“Really far,” he agrees. “But their light travels through the dark for years and years and years to end up - ” He points, over the trees, to where the first stars are appearing in the sky. “Right there. Isn’t that beautiful?”

“Yes!”

“And your Mama,” he says, “your Mama is a silver fire too. And she traveled through the dark for years and years and years to end up - ”

Willow perches up on her knees to peer into the kitchen window, where her mother is contentedly humming a folk tune, Ash cradled to her in a bunting, as she dries a mug.

“Right here,” Willow whispers, awed. 

“And isn’t Mama beautiful?” he whispers back.

Willow nods seriously, fixing him with her expressive blue eyes, and declaring, as though nothing could be more obvious or important: 

“Papa, she’s the most beautifulest thing in the whole world.”


	38. the line of work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> modern AU, based on this prompt: “I’m a hired killer and I keep my job secret from my wonderful spouse. One day I find my work clothes cleaned and my weapons missing, then my spouse walks in with my weapons and explains they cleaned/maintenance everything for me and what the hell THEY KNEW THIS WHOLE TIME?"

She yawns as she watches the news report, absently congratulating herself on once again leaving police scratching their heads in confusion. Though, to be fair, it’s not like anyone is going to be mourning Mr. Snow for too long - or looking too thoroughly into his death. The essence of nightlock was a neat bit of work, if she does say so herself, and she does.

“Hey, babe,” her husband says, plopping into the couch. “Good day?”

“Average,” she says casually, leaning over to lightly peck his lips. “Yours?”

“Oh, you know, endless pining for you.” 

That earns him a laugh and another kiss, this one deeper, as her fingers thread in his shirt and she breathes in the sweet scent of the bakery on his skin. How she ever managed to score the world’s most loving, generous, hardworking, and, best of all, oblivious husband is beyond her. But she’s not complaining. Complaining is just something you don’t do in her line of work. And why would she? 

She’s got everything she’s ever wanted. Steady income, nice house, perfect husband to spoil.

She cuddles into his side. “Pining is a given,” she says. “What else?”

“Well, hmm. I made bread and macarons and decorated a couple wedding cakes. Came home and worked on the deck a little — I still need your input on the paint though.” 

“I thought we decided on chestnut?”

“Oh, did we? We still have some cans of the mahogany so I wasn’t sure.”

“No, definitely the chestnut. I don’t care what Aunt Effie says.”

“Noted. I’ll finish that up tomorrow then.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.” She yawns again. “Sorry, I’m tired.”

“You’ve had a long day,” he reminds her, pulling her closer so she can rest her head against his shoulder. 

If only he knew. 

“What else did I do? Um … Went to the grocery. Mailed that package. Picked up the dry cleaning. Oh, by the way, that blood stain won’t come out of your white sweater. I thought about asking them to wash it again but I figured since it’s been, what? a month? since you took out Mrs. Coin? the stain’s probably stuck. Which is a bummer, but I checked the tag and it’s not an expensive sweater …” 

But Katniss’s brain checked out somewhere around “a month.” She gapes at her husband, a choking sound caught in her throat.

“What?” he asks guilelessly.

“What — what the hell?” She sputters. “You knew? You know? You — what the hell, Peeta?”

“Uh - ?” He raises his eyebrow at her. “You … you thought you were keeping it from me?”

“I mean, apparently not!” she exclaims.

Peeta’s mouth twitches, like he’s trying very hard to hide a laugh. “Babe,” he says, “was I not supposed to notice the ten thousand dollar watch? Or the car? Or the impromptu trips to France? Or the fancy art supplies?”

“I — well — quit grinning at me!” she protests.

“Can’t,” he says. “You’re the cutest hit woman I’ve ever seen.”

She scowls at him, but she doesn’t really mean it. It’s more a pout. “Don’t say things like that. I have a reputation.”

“Cutest,” he repeats. “Hit. Woman. I’ve. Ever. Seen.”

“You’re next on my hit list,” she says, tackling him flat on his back against the cushions and twining fistfuls of his curls in her slender fingers.

“Whatever will I do?” he teases.

“I hate you,” she says, but the remark is offset significantly by the progress of her lips down his body.

“I love you,” he says simply. “You’re a terrible liar. And I love you.”

Katniss rolls her eyes and nips at the skin of his hip, but the kiss she follows it up with to soothe the spot is a softly smiling one. “I’m putting you on weapon cleaning duty now,” she says, mock petulant. 

“Fine by me,” he sighs happily, folding his arms above his head as her deft fingers undo his belt, “Fine by me.”


	39. love of my life

it was meant to be a picnic / honey and toast and a bit of plum wine / and they meant to work on the book / a watercolor of her mother and father / but something was lost in translation / and now several loose pages are strewn about the blanket / and their fingers and lips and half a dozen other places / are sticky with honey and paint / and the sunlight, heavy and gold / teases at them through the boughs of the birches / as they plunge into the lake to clean up / laughing and splashing at first / then floating lazily / the world a slowly turning vision of pale sky and tendrils of cloud 

she closes her eyes / the quiet sound of the water against her ears dreamy and gentle / stirs only slightly when she feels his hands cradle her neck and lift her head above the water an inch to ask her a question

“did your father ever bring your mother to this place?” / she swishes her arms in a flying motion / and bats her feet / “don’t know,” she says “maybe before I was born / wouldn’t surprise me / she was the love of his life after all” / she hears him give a soft laugh / “what?” / “love of his life” he repeats “it’s more romantic of you than usual” / “true though” she says “she was” 

after a while / they make their way back up the shore / to their basket and the book / and he sits with her gown thrown over his lap / sketching the rough outline of a kind woodsman and his herb-wise wife / in this very spot / watching a flock of geese skim over the lake 

she curls up on her side next to him / stretches, yawns, almost feline / (though he’ll keep that observation to himself) / blinking up at him sleepily, contentedly / “hey” she yawns again “you’re the love of my life, you know” / he drops his pencil / but she doesn’t seem to notice and clarifies “just, you know, while I’m being more romantic than usual” / he laughs / a dumfounded, delighted sound / runs one hand down her side to rest at the warm curve of her waist / “you - you’re the love of my life too” he manages / “I thought so” she hums contently, drowsily, a bit nonsensically / closing her eyes “I always thought so”


	40. utility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dark!everlark Mockingjay AU where Coin takes over

her fingers—red with the worrying of her teeth—grip onto the edge of the skybridge. it’s an out-of-place thing, in this new world of Coin’s making, where everything serves a utilitarian purpose. a skybridge is unnecessary. 

she is unnecessary too.

the wind is stinging in her eyes as she mounts the railing. she was a bird once, but they clipped her wings when they were done with her. today, for a heartbeat, she will fly again. and then she will be dead. and it will be better. but someone grabs her from behind. 

“what are you doing?” he says, blue eyes furious. 

“why do you care?” she says, weary. he hates her, doesn’t he? hadn’t he made that clear when he didn’t come to comfort her as she hid from the broadcast of Coin’s Games, cried until she couldn’t breathe? 

“I need you,” he says. 

“no you don’t,” she says, but he does. and she does. and they’re not okay and it isn’t safe but they file for an apartment together because taxes are easier that way.

her fingers are bandaged and he doesn’t let her bite them and they discover that she won’t if he’s holding her hand. so they hold hands. and they hold each other in the night when the concrete and the sterile lights become too much to bear. 

it doesn’t feel right. it’s not right. her heart is chock full of debris. his is laced up and down with poison. maybe in another world where she aimed her arrow higher, they’d have mended properly. he’d have brought her bread and she’d have led him to her father’s lake and they’d have fallen in love again and years later, they’d have watched their children dance in a field of poppies.

but she didn’t aim her arrow higher. and this isn’t that world. 

he finds the medicine she’s supposed to take stashed under the sink and she fights him about it but he gets the pills down her eventually. she drags him to the bathroom and keeps his hair away from his face while he vomits into the toilet and fights against the torture in his skull. 

they don’t say “I love you” 

they say “I need you” 

and doesn’t know if that’s a good distinction or not 

but they touch and she likes the heat, likes it a lot, and she decides not to think about distinctions. 

“do you know,” he says one night, “there are people that would make us king and queen of Panem if we wanted. we’d have to overthrow Coin … but it’s not like we haven’t done that before.”

he might be joking, but she’s not. she turns onto her side to face him. “how many people?”

“enough.” 

“then why not?”

her fingers are neatly manicured, each nail softly rounded, a pearl adorning her left hand. they never had a proper wedding, but this is her wedding ring. and they don’t have a proper marriage, but he’s her husband. and they don’t have a real love but she adores him more than she spares a thought for anything else.

more than the country. more than the life they’ve made. and it is a good life.

her fingers flutter along the delicate primrose petals. her gardens are full of primroses. pinks and yellows. after all these years, she’s beginning to understand why Snow had his magnificent pavilions of blooms. the garden is a place of quiet, of peace. 

why didn’t she think of this sooner? to save Panem by ruling Panem. by ensuring that good people are fed. by ensuring that bad people are dealt with swiftly. 

her fingers—red with blood—take the white cloth that is offered to her. the rebel, one of Coin’s last sympathizers, slumps to the ground with her ceremonial arrow lodged in their heart. arms encircle her from behind, drawing her down from the execution block as the crowd cheers. 

“what are you doing?” she inquires teasingly. 

he grins and tilts her mouth to his. “why do you care?” he whispers against her lips. 

(she doesn’t. she hasn’t cared for a long, long time.)


	41. second born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: how the second toastbaby came about

At nine in the morning, when pale sunlight is reflecting in the armoire mirror, and Willow, not yet completely comfortable sleeping in her own bed, is curled up at the foot of her parents’ quilt, nose to nose with Cottontail, Peeta strums the banjo an old, stiff fingered musician gave to him on his twentieth birthday.

Back then, he didn’t have the vaguest idea what to do with the strings. Now, he plays a tune his wife made up six years ago and hopes she’ll catch on to the unspoken question. 

I’ve made cradle and bunting, he plays. But I think there’s something I’ve missed.

She glances over at him, hair fanned out on her pillow, and hums along for a moment, before reaching over to quiet his hand. He sets the instrument down on the side table and rests his forehead against hers, closes his eyes, feels her breath against his mouth. 

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. After a moment, he feels her cup his cheek, running her thumb over the groove of a scar slashed from his ear to his chin.

“I remember,” she says, “when my mother told me she was going to have Prim.”

“And you were overjoyed?” he guesses.

She laughs. “No. I was furious,” she admits.

“Really?”

“Really. But the minute she was born … ” she breathes. “It was like … like my life hadn’t been complete before her.”

“That’s a big feeling for a four year old,” he jokes.

“No bigger than falling in love at age five,” she reminds him.

“That’s true,” he says. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to find the bridge of her nose and kiss it.

“Though,” she says, “since Willow has at least a year on both of us, I’ll bet she can handle it.”

Then he does open his eyes, just to confirm that hers are shining as bright as he’s been imagining. 

“You want to have another one?”

She bites her lip and nods, something that sounds like a happy sob catching in her throat, and then there’s nothing more to do but trade sleepy, grateful kisses and murmur whispered hopes and possible names to into the gauzy hush, at least until Willow wakes up, asking if they can make pancakes.

“Of course, apple blossom,” they tell her. And then, as Katniss scoops her daughter onto her hip and Peeta lets the cat hop onto his shoulders, “How would you feel about having a baby brother or sister?” 

And Willow squeals so loudly and so gleefully, that several drowsy birds take started flight outside the open window, and Katniss and Peeta decide it’s probably redundant to go a house over and tell Haymitch the news.


	42. beginning and ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a short Odesta and Everlark free verse, alternating perspectives

i. it starts like this: you tip back your drink / and you think / or whatever it is your slurry, half drowned brain is doing / of a girl in a loose cotton blouse / small nose / and mouth / and waves / to your right / the sea air briny and sour / and waves / tumbling past her ears / dark / like the smudge of lipstick on your collar / and yet nothing like it at all / and the memory of her lets you forget everything else / without the help of alcohol / so you leave the bar / and dream of her laugh instead 

ii. it starts like this: you sit cross-legged in the cold auditorium / and watch the run on your teacher’s tights traipse all the way to the floor / and bite your lip because your mother taught you better than to say anything about a lady’s appearance / but the girl hopping up onto the rickety stool at the front of class / is the most beautiful thing you’ve seen / and you’ve seen an apple cobbler right out of the oven / crackling with a sugar topping / her voice takes your breath away / and you don’t care if you ever get it back 

iii. it ends like this: you wait in a room with a round, polished table / a gilt mirror / and upholstery / and you long for a bunk / track lights along the ceiling / and sun-kissed skin against yours / some bridal bed / but the creaking of the pipes reminded you both of the creak of rigging in the harbor / and you promised him / that when this was over / you’d make a boat of your own / and chase the edge of the sky together / he’ll chase ahead of you / but you’ll catch up 

iv. it ends like this: you buy yourself a pair of homemade earrings / because you can / and he has you stand in front of the screen door / so that the dying light turns them to amber drops / like honey / dripping down onto your shoulders / and he presses his mouth there / to taste the warmth / and you lean back against the doorframe / and let him / watch shadows swallow up the dusty dirt track / that runs away to the train station / and wonder when it’s going to rain


	43. bloom and grow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an Everlark/Sound of Music AU, or at least pieces of it, for @wendywobbles on tumblr

**[first meeting] **

“I suppose that you are the new tutor?”

Peeta turns abruptly, dropping his bag in the process. In the doorway stands a lovely but severe looking woman who must be a number of years his senior. Her dark hair is braided neatly back in a bun and her outfit, a regimented green dress with gold buttons, is fastened high at her neck and drops low to her polished shoes. 

“Oh, yes, Frau Hawthorne. I’m Peeta.” He extends a handshake to her which she does not oblige. 

She gives him an appraising look. “You’ll be wanting to meet the children,” she says, gesturing with a terse wave of her hand that he should accompany her back into the entryway. 

“I should like that, yes,” he says eagerly, following her back into the sunny room. 

“And you’ll be wanting some new clothes,” she says brusquely. 

He has barely opened his mouth to register a retort when she brandishes a silver whistle hung about her neck and gives it several shrill pips. There is a thundering of footsteps and the slamming of doors and a moment later seven children — two boys and five girls — are standing in a regimented line for their mother’s inspection. 

“Introduce yourself to the new tutor, children,” she instructs. 

The eldest girl steps forward. She is the image of her mother. “I’m Willow. I’m sixteen and I’m much too intelligent to need a tutor.”

The eldest boy announces himself as Ash. In short order Peeta is introduced to Poppy, Avocet, Violet, Wren and Linnet. 

“I’m certain we’re all going to be good friends,” he assures them and receives some tittering and sly looks in return. 

“I should hope that you will be as disciplining as you are friendly, young man,” says Frau Hawthorne. 

“Of course,” he says. 

“Not that you have much to live up to. The last tutor we had only lasted a day.”

And with that comforting thought, she sweeps away and leaves him alone with the children. 

**[“oh yes you are, Captain!”] **

“Do you know, Katniss, I think you are quite transformed here, away from Vienna.”

“Is that your opinion of me? You think I am more comfortable here among the trees and the water than making pitiful chit chat with the unbearable people you run about with?” she says pleasantly, holding lightly to his arm.

Finnick, looking at home himself in a cool blue suit, chuckles. “That is my estimation of the situation, yes.” 

“And what do you think of the country?” 

“I think it to be absolutely lovely,” Finnick says, pouring her a glass of lemonade, “and I think you — ” 

But he is interrupted by a commotion from the lake. The sounds of splashing oars and loud, riotous singing. A boat is nearing the water gate, crowded with children in play clothes, laughing and ribbing each other affectionately — and at the prow of the boat, a young man in drab summer clothes and a patched hat, beaming at them all. 

Katniss’s eyes widen and her heels make quick time down to the gate. At the sight of her approach, Poppy calls out, delightedly, “Mother! Mother’s home!”

The rest of the children take up the call, waving and shouting unintelligible but happy things. Katniss flings open the gate.

“Come in at once!” she commands. 

“Oh, Frau Hawthorne!” Peeta says, looking startled but unabashedly cheerful as he stands in the boat, “We didn’t expect you back so — oh!” 

The motion of standing has caused the entire craft to tip and the children and their tutor are unceremoniously dumped into the lake. 

“Out of the water this instant,” she orders, “It’s far too cold.” 

The children climb out of the water, giggling, and race up to the house in a dripping mess. Finnick watches their progress and smiles. She shoots him a look that makes him (unsuccessfully) try to hide it. 

“What is the meaning of this?” she questions the last of the party. 

“We were enjoying the weather and the sky,” Peeta says, flushed with sunshine and with blue eyes bright. “It is wonderful to have you back so soon, Frau Hawthorne.”

“It was not wonderful to come back and have my children running around the countryside like a pack of urchins,” she snaps. 

Peeta’s smile drops. “Oh but it’s so good for them. We’ve been learning about mountain plants and animals — and having such fun. Don’t be cross with them. They want your attention, Frau. They need their mother.” 

“They have their mother,” she bites back. 

Finnick coughs. “I think … I’ll go in and see the children.” He hurries inside. 

“I didn’t mean disrespect,” Peeta says earnestly, “I know you love them dearly but I do think there are better ways to show it.” 

“I do think I know how to raise my own children.”

“I’m not entirely sure of that, ma’am,” he says sharply. 

“I am entirely sure of that, sir!” she all but shouts and then stops, stunned at her own anger. “That … was uncalled for … I apologize. I — ”

A soft sound drifts from the parlor and Katniss feels the breath leave her lungs. “Is that … are they … that’s the meadow song … those are my children singing … the meadow song.”

“Go in and see,” Peeta encourages. 

“Who … who taught them that?” she whispers, turning to him with her heart thumping in her chest. No one has sung that song in her house since Gale died. 

“I did,” he says, “Go on. Go in and sing with them.” 


	44. car troubles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern High School AU, for @safeinpeetasarms' car getting towed troubles

“Is your dad mad?” Peeta signals and gets into the right lane as he gingerly puts the question. Katniss is curled up in the passenger seat, staring teary eyed and red nosed at the dawn lit road. She shakes her head.

“No, he’s not,” she says. “He knows it was an accident. He and mom are gonna go pick the car up later. They’re not even making me pay the full fee. Just a bit of it.” She gives an embarrassed, watery laugh. “I know I’m being emotional.”

“Oh, Katniss,” he practically coos, reaching over to rub her knee. “It’s okay.” He goes to withdraw his hand but she pins it down and holds it.

“It’s just - it’s expenses. It’s always expenses. Mom and Dad are so sweet about it … but I just feel guilty.” She wipes her eyes. “That and - and I know this is silly but I was gonna use my allowance money to buy a dress for prom.”

Peeta smiles and squeezes her hand. “You? Were gonna go to prom? In a dress?”

“Don’t laugh.” A little pouty.

“I’m not.”

“It was a really pretty dress.” A little longingly. “Even I can admit that.”

Peeta parks the car in the school parking lot and considers her, his beloved, tough-as-nails softie of a best friend. Then he puts the car in reverse.

“What are you doing? We’ll be late.”

“We’ve got time. Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna go down to the Starbucks at the corner and get you a big, sugary, extra-whip Frappuccino. And then, after school, we’re gonna go buy you the prom dress of your dreams.”

“Peeta, no. You can’t do that for me.” She says, frowning and shaking her head.

“Oh, I’ll be expecting payment,” he says. He leans over and brushes his nose gently against hers in a way that she could maybe construe as merely friendly, but by the way pink blush blooms from the spot their skin touches, she definitely hasn’t. “Help me pick out a matching suit tie?”

Her lips quirk in amusement, surprise, and delight as she nods.


	45. tragic romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more Modern High School AU for @safeinpeetasarms

“Okay, but - ”

Katniss makes an absentminded hand gesture to ask for the burger back and Peeta hands it over just as absentmindedly and sips contemplatively from his milkshake as he watches his best friend wave her hands animatedly. “But if Anakin really loved her, he would have trusted her!”

“No, no, no, but that’s not the point,” Peeta says, leaning forward and waving a greasy French fry at her in emphasis. “The point is that his fear of losing Padme blinded him past the point of loving her.” He takes the burger back and adds, around a mouthful of sesame bun and tomatoes. “It’s really tragic when you think about it.”

“I don’t like tragic romance,” Katniss quibbles, slurping her coke. “I like it when they’re happy.”

Peeta smiles. “How many of our classmates you think would laugh at me if I told them grumpy, grouchy Katniss Everdeen is a softie.”

She frowns at him and slurps her drink more aggressively. “Who likes romances that end in fire and death?” she says. “So what if like it when they’re like, frolicking in the meadows and eating pears?” She snatches the burger back. “And stop hogging this.”

Peeta’s smile becomes more pronounced. “I like that you like pears and meadows. I like - oop, ketchup - ” He reaches over and swipes the smudge from her chin, hand lingering maybe just a second too long, voice dropping just a little too soft. “In fact, I love it.”

Katniss clears her throat and he snatches his hand back from her mouth, going as red as her face feels.

“Um,” he says, “yeah anyway. Romance. I mean - ! Star Wars.”

“Star Wars,” she says with a shaky giggle. “Yeah.”


	46. acceptance speech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @thehopefuldandelion on tumblr for the prompt: Peeta is a photographer at the Oscars and Katniss is a celebrity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so I twisted this a tiny bit because I just can’t see Peeta as a member of the media; uh rated T for like a little innuendo at the end there please be advised

Katniss fairly twirls into their hotel room at the end of the night, and immediately shimmies out of the scarlet and black bejeweled gown Cinna designed specially for her.

Her husband barely gets the door closed before she’s left the dress neatly over a chair and dived, dressed only in her underthings, onto the bed, hair and makeup as glamorous as ever, and sighs in relief.

“If I never have to walk another red carpet again it’ll be too soon!” she proclaims dramatically.

“Have to agree there,” Peeta says, slipping out of his shoes and setting his golden statue on the side table. “One award season was enough for me. I don’t know how you do it every year.”

“You’ll have to start designing worse sets then, my love,” she laughs, stretching languidly. Then she reaches her hands out to him. “Hey.” Her voice is almost a whisper, her eyes adoring and soft in the low light. He finishes ridding himself of his fancy attire and climbs up next to her, taking her hands. “I’m really, really proud of you, baby,” she says, leaning up and kissing his nose.

“Thank you,” he breathes back. “I love you.”

He could say more, about the countless hours of support, about how despite being inundated with reporters clamoring about her own latest movie and nomination, his wife kept generously directing the conversation back to him with a “it’s such a treat to be able to work with skilled artists … like my husband here!” but he keeps it to “I love you so much.”

“I wish you could’ve won too,” he says, tracing her stomach with his fingertips. Cinna’s design cleverly disguised the gentle bump growing there (there’s already enough paparazzi scrutiny on their family without one more thing for them to pry into just yet).

“Oh, there’ll be other movies,” she says with a casual wave of her hand. “And Lavinia more than deserved that win. When I do a movie entirely in sign language and lose, then you can complain.”

She sits up on her knees and caresses his face. “And now, Academy Award winning set designer Peeta Mellark … ”

And she pushes him onto his back and stretches out on top of him with a sly grin, “… I think it’s high time I hear the rest of your thank you speech.”


	47. closing time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @thehopefuldandelion on Tumblr for the prompt: Peeta owns a restaurant or some kind of store that Katniss is an employee in and there’s Everlark.

“What’re you still doing here?” Peeta asks as he switches the bakery lights to their dim closing time glow. “Go home, Katniss. Go get some rest.”

“Oh no I will I’m, just, you know.”

“Watering the fake plants?” Peeta tugs the plastic begonia out of her grip with a smile and Katniss groans and puts her face in her hands.

“Okay, if you must know I’m avoiding going back to my apartment because there is a very good chance my roommate Gale and my sister Prim went back there after their date and I need to be at least a mile clear of whatever is going on there.”

Peeta laughs and nods understandingly. “Tell you what,” he suggests, “let’s have a little date of our own right here.” He says it jokingly, but her cheeks flare pink.

“Nothing like yesterday’s pasteries and black coffee for dinner,” she quips lightly to save face.

“Bold of you to assume I wasn’t about to break into the cake,” he says as he unties his apron and tosses it on the counter. He spins her around before she has time to react and his fingers make quick work of her apron too. Her blush is red now, but her back is to him, and in his playful mood he doesn’t catch it. She hopes she’s got it under control by the time she turns back to him, but she can’t speak for her eyes. She’s pretty sure they’re sparkling with the proof of her crush. But then, his are too so what does that mean?

“Well,” he offers, scooting back a chair for her at the table with the fake begonia, “What do you say?”

Katniss bites her lip around a grin and sits down. 


	48. passengers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @arainydream's prompt: prompt: "katniss and peeta's words to each other before going into a 2 year hibernation on their journey through space"

The hibernation pods will close in two minutes, the automated voice tells them. Two minutes, and then ten years. But to them, it will only feel like a twenty minute nap. And when it’s over, the limits of the galaxy are theirs.

Katniss Everdeen turns over in her pod to look into the blue eyes of the man next to her. He meets them levelly back and her heart rate speeds up, as it always does when their gazes lock.

Already somewhat drowsy, his hand drapes over the side of the pod toward her … and extends into a disdainful middle finger.

She gives him a sarcastic smile. “Sweet dreams, jackass,” she says. A ten year nap away from Peeta Mellark’s smug face sounds amazing. She happily slips under the drugs, contentedly settling in to the plush back of her pod as autopilot takes over the ship.

A crash wakes her abruptly, jostling her against the lid of her pod. She cries out. This isn’t right. This isn’t right.

“Help! Help!” she gasps out, knowing no one can possibly hear her.

Except someone obviously can, because Peeta Mellark’s frightened face appears above her.

“Hold on, Everdeen,” he says in a kinder tone than she’s ever heard him use. “Hold on.”

“What the hell is happening?” she hisses.

“Something’s gone wrong,” he explains as she scrambles out of her pod. “I think we’re the only ones awake.”

Katniss stares in distress and anger at the person she hates most of all the crew, but one question drowns out all of that. “How long have we been out?”

“I - um.” Peeta glances around. “Four years.”

“So we have six - six more to go? ” Her voice rises in panic.

“Seems that way.” He awkwardly rubs his shoulder.

She bites her lip around a half scream. Six years, alone in space, with only Peeta Mellark for company. The galaxy has never seemed more clostrophobic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so it's basically passengers but enemies to lovers ;D


	49. roughhousing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @arainydream's prompt: "also, hit me up with some southern everlark with a side of sweet tea if you will"

“Okay, you go,” Katniss yawns. It’s an early summer morning, and her toes just touch the dewy grass beneath the tire swing.

Peeta sits on the upjutting roots of the big oak. Its leaves are lush overhead, filtering sunlight down in what Katniss’s Aunt Hazelle would call “prayer beams.”

“Um,” Peeta considers, popping raspberries off his fingers into his mouth. “Would you rather spend a night in the old cemetery or spend a night at the abandoned farmhouse?”

“Peeta, that’s morbid,” she chides him, sounding every bit like her mother sounds at church when she shushes her chatty daughters.

“Oh, come on, Kitty,” he teases, and he grabs ahold of the tire swing, hauling himself up to stand on the top of the rubber circle. Katniss glances up at his muddy feet and scowls.

“The cemetery I guess,” she says, jumping out of the tire and giving the swing a shove as she does so, trying to throw him off balance. “But I’d take you with me.”

Peeta effortlessly hops down and prowls towards her. “For protection against all the ghouls and ghosts?” he taunts.

“No.” She gives him a shove which he catches easily, and then they’re wrestling playfully around the knoll, each trying to get a tickling jab at the other’s ribs, stumbling and growing pink cheeked with laughter. “No, I’d take you cause you’re a slowpoke,” Katniss gasps in between lunges, “Cause the ghouls and ghosts’d eat you first.”


	50. deep blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @lovely-tothe-bone's prompt: "I do. I need you." Modern AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is part of a story I'll never write called "Deep Blue," the summary of which is this: 
> 
> it’s a tradition that started when they turned eighteen: every summer, Katniss and Peeta take a road trip to a secluded beach town a couple of hours from where they grew up; it’s the best week of the year: just two best friends and the deep blue ocean
> 
> the trip fell by the wayside for a couple of years when Peeta moved away to work for a communications company, and stopped altogether when Katniss got married
> 
> this year, one local artisan bakery and one divorce later, Katniss and Peeta return to the beach that was once their happy place for a moment of peace
> 
> … and maybe something more
> 
> (it’s basically just one extended beach scene)

Waves wash steadily onto the shore, crash against the rocky jut of land at one end of the beach. The sky is gray and pale, crushed blue. The remnants of their picnic are spread out at their feet: empty containers of sandwiches and fruit and a half drunk bottle of wine. The wind is high and she wraps her blanket tight around her shoulders.

“I’m happy for you,” she says, breaking the quiet they’ve been ensconced in for some time. “I think if it was anyone else, I’d be jealous.”

She digs her toes into the sand and her lips quirk sadly. She glances up at her best friend of eleven years and they start to tremble. “But I am really happy for you. And proud. The bakery, the new house. Everything you’ve always wanted.” She takes his hand and gives a tight squeeze. “You did it,” she breathes and there’s no hint of bitterness in her voice.

But Peeta shakes his head, frowning. “Everything I wanted, maybe,” he says. “But not the one thing I need.”

“What’s that?”

The wind blows his curls haphazardly and makes it almost impossible to hear what he says next but she does catch it, and it gives her the courage to do the thing she wanted to do on the night of senior prom, the night she got engaged, and since she got here last night.

“You,” he says, and she surges forward to kiss him.


	51. valentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a simple Valentine's Day drabble for @thatcomesandstaysfire

She’s out completely, snoring loudly, with her hair in her mouth, her pajama top twisted around her body. Her hands are half trapped under her side, the circulation of her wrists somewhat pinched by the hairties she’s got snapped around them.

She’s so pretty. He adores her.

He steals as quietly as he can downstairs to get started. He turns on some pleasant piano music and hums along as he whips up a breakfast of biscuits and gravy, strawberries with chocolate, and hot, rich coffee with lots of cream and a drizzle of caramel syrup. They usually eat healthy. Not today.

He loads the food neatly onto a serving tray, decorated with peonies, and takes it upstairs. His wife is still asleep, luckily, because he has one more thing to get ready. He tiptoes into the warm laundry room where a cozy basket houses a tiny white kitten. He gives her a stroke behind the ears and the kitten yawns and chirps as she wakes.

“Hey there, Cottontail,” he says, pulling a pink ribbon from his pocket and gently tying it around her neck. The kitten purrs as he scoops her up. “Let’s go surprise your new Mommy, huh?”


	52. afterglow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss and Peeta after "so after"

She watches him drowsing in the candlelight. In that hazy, contented moment before a deep, peaceful rest, one she almost forgot existed, but he’s helped her to find again. His breathing is even and that alone makes her heart ache in the best way.

She lets out a sleepy exhale of her own and splays out languidly on her stomach, enjoying the feeling of her bare skin against the soft sheets. She bumps her nose gently against his chin and he stirs. His eyes blink blearily down at her and the love in them almost takes her breath away.

“Hi,” she says, blushing at the sight.

“Hi,” he whispers back, somewhat shy.

“Are you asleep?”

He laughs quietly and one hand glides over her hip. “Not yet. Almost.”

“Okay.” She watches the candlelight play about his curls (mussed by her roving fingers) and smiles. “Me too.”

They’re not making much sense, but that’s okay. This is good. This warm, dreamy place that smells of cool summer air through the window, and wood smoke, and them. She yawns and scoots closer to him. The arm on her hip slides up to paint circles on the small of her back.

“Goodnight,” he breathes, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Goodnight,” she replies, cheek against his chest. And then she decides there is one thing she wants to do (needs to do) before she drifts off. “Peeta?” she says.

“Hmm?” he hums in reply.

It’s as easy as breathing. “I love you.”

She feels his heart give a skip against her palm, but he only replies in kind, as though they’ve been saying it their whole lives (and in a way, though not in so many words, they have). “And I love you.”

Their sleep is dreamless, and the next morning is sun-drenched in pink and peach and gold.


	53. artist's baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @safeinpeetasarms's prompt: Katniss and Peeta bike shopping for toastbaby girl's birthday

It’s the one thing Willow wants in the whole wide world. Well, at the moment. Last month it was a Wonder Woman backpack.

But what my baby girl wants for her sixth (and every other) birthday, she gets for her sixth (and every other) birthday! And she wants a bike, so she’s getting a bike. With training wheels. And shin guards. And a mouth guard. Only to be used in the front yard. With supervision. And sunscreen.

I rise up on tiptoes (as best I can with my baby bump having achieved full inconvenience status) to read the price on one of the tiny vehicles.

“What color did she say she wanted?” I ask my husband, who is examining extra padded helmets.

“Um,” he says, checking the most recent text from Annie, who is babysitting our excitable birthday girl, “As of two minutes ago, green.”

“Girl after my own heart,” I say with a smile, just as another text pings through.

“Pink,” Peeta reports. “We’re into pink now.”

“Okay, girl after Aunt Prim’s heart,” I backtrack.

_Ping! _

“Purple.”

_Ping! _

“Turquoise.”

_Ping! _

Peeta laugh at this one. “Sparkles,” he says. “According to Annie the excitement is overwhelming.”

I sigh affectionately at my daughter’s indecision. “Should’ve known,” I say, as I peer up and luckily lay eyes on a dizzyingly colorful option (complete with pom poms). “She’s an artist’s baby, through and through.”


	54. something good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @hungergamesfangirl02's prompt: toastbaby girl is on the way!

Katniss grips the edge of the tub and takes a shaky breath that turns into a low groan as a spasm of pain shakes her body. Panic is steadily rising in her throat, making her nauseated. She’s felt pain before, but that isn’t what frightens her. _I’m about to be a mother: real or not real? _

“Peeta!” He’s in the kitchen making her some tea, while they wait for the midwife, but she hears him crashing up the stairs almost before she’s finished calling for him. He kneels beside the tub.

“I’m here.” Running his hand against her forehead. She leans into the touch.

“I’m scared,” she whimpers.

“Me too,” he admits. It isn’t exactly what she wanted to hear, but some part of her is grateful she isn’t alone in the feeling. “But,” Peeta goes on, “we’ve been scared before, haven’t we?”

She nods. Gently he splays his hand over her distended belly.

“The darkest nights of our lives, we faced them together.”

Her hand finds his over the place their child is.

“And we’re going to face this one together too. And think, Katniss, at the end of it - ”

Something fiery swells in her chest. “At the end of it, something good.”

“At the end of it, something good,” he says, kissing her softly. “Something so good.”


	55. country mouse, town mouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a mouse!everlark AU written for @arainydream

“Miss Katniss, you look simply splendid in that bluebell cap!” squeaked the town mouse, his big golden ears twitching happily as he gave a little bow to her.

“Oh.” The country mouse’s dainty paw went to the top of her head. “I - it isn’t a hat. I didn’t even realize - um. What I mean to say is, thank you.” She awkwardly curled her long tail around a body, a sure sign she was abashed.

“Well,” said Peeta. “It’s pretty anyway. Not that you need anything to make you pretty, Miss Katniss. You’re the prettiest mouse I know.” His paws clapped over his mouth as he said it.

Katniss’s tail unfurled somewhat and her whiskers gave a pleased quiver. “That’s sweet of you to say,” she chirped. “Um, listen, I was just on my way to gather a wild strawberry. Would you like to come?”

“Would I ever!” squeaked the town mouse. “A moment spent with you, Miss Katniss? Why it’s better than a whole day in a cheese shop!”


	56. slushies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @endlessnightlock's prompt: "Slushies aren't just for kids. F - society!"

The house smells of soap and baby powder, of Grandpa’s famous lasagna, and of Grandma’s favorite perfume, because she can’t quite tell anymore when she’s used too much.

Katniss sighs and sinks into the squashy cushions of the porch swing. Her braid, ribboned with strands of silver, has come undone, tugged at by tiny hands. She blows a raspberry of exhaustion as she watches cars laze down the neighborhood street at long intervals.

“Thought I might find you out here,” her husband says. “Budge up.”

He scoots in beside her and triumphantly holds up two big styrofoam cups with bright red straws.

“Is this what you went out for earlier?” she yawns, but makes a grabby hand for hers.

“Yup,” he sighs contentedly, throwing his arm around her and propping his house shoes up against the railing. She takes a sip of her slushie: it’s cherry; cold and way too sweet. She can practically taste the gas station air. It’s just what she needed.

“Thank you, baby,” she says. The kids will gag and roll their eyes to hear Grandma call Grandpa that, but she’ll only wink at them when they do.

Peeta raises his cup. “Slushies aren’t just for kids.”

And Katniss finishes the toast with a cheery puncation she’d never let her beloved grandbabies hear.


	57. clingy couple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an Odesta modern AU outtake written for @archersandsunsets's prompt: "We've become that clingy couple you used to complain about!"

The sound of the waves and the feel of the ocean breeze against his skin is starting to lull him to sleep when Annie’s hand snaps onto his bicep, making him yelp loudly.

“Mercy!” he exclaims, much like his aunt used to. He rolls over sleepily to face his girlfriend, squinting slightly in the late afternoon sun. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve just had a terrible realization.”

“Okay,” he says slowly. Knowing Annie it’s probably something more along the lines of “I forgot to sunscreen my ears” or “I really think we should make a reservation for dinner; who knows if they take walk ins?” It’s what he loves about her; always keeping him on his toes. “What was your realization?”

“You know who does this? Who comes down to the beach and cuddles up in a cabana and shares their drink like this?”

“Um, lots of couples?” Finnick says. “Half our friends.”

“No, that’s precisely my point!” Annie says. “We used to laugh at them, but Finn, ever since we’ve started dating … ”

Finnick’s eyes widen. This really is terrible realization.

“Oh my God,” he whispers softly. “We’ve become Katniss and Peeta.”


	58. announcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an in-canon AU written for @omercilessmoon's prompt: "They didn't find out! They already knew!" (feat. platonic Everthorne because I need that in my life)

“Have you told anyone else?” He twirls the leaf stem between his delicate fingers.

“No,” she says. “I didn’t tell anyone. Well, now I’ve told you.”

“So how did your mother and Prim find out?”

“They didn’t find out.” Katniss buries her face in his shoulder. He pats her back gently. Her next words are a frustrated groan. “They already knew! They knew before I did.”

He gives a low whistle of sympathy. The wind is cold around them and a few decaying leaves skate along the rocky ground.

“They promised not to say anything but I had to let somebody know before we left.”

“Why me? Why not - ?”

“I don’t know,” Katniss chokes miserably. “I should. I need to. I want to. I just don’t know how.”

“Well,” Gale gives a feeble chuckle, “You’ve got a month on a train together. My bet is you’ll think of some way to tell him.”

“I’m such an idiot.”

“No, you’re not, Catnip,” her friend says, lifting her chin to meet his eyes. “You’re in love. And hey.” He gives her shoulders a squeeze. “I don’t know all that much about Mellark. But if what I watched in the Games is any indication, you’re going to be just fine. More than fine.”

He nods towards her stomach and she manages a hopeful, shaky inhale. “Both of you.”


	59. hades & persephone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @lovely-tothe-bone's prompt: "Everyone keeps telling me you're the bad guy" (feat. Hades!Katniss and Persephone!Peeta)

“Who is everyone?” she murmurs. Her voice, always soft and smoky, is barely audible over the fountain in the courtyard beyond their bedchamber.

He gives a wry smirk. “My mother,” he says. He expects her to frown or say something sharp about the woman even he can admit was asphyxiating in her need for control over him. But she doesn’t. Instead, she smiles and perches up on her knees. Her crown of oleander is lopsided and though she is queen of all the earth’s riches, he decides no ornament could suit her more than that circlet of flowers.

She reaches up to brush the canopy of pomegranate trees that grows above their bed. The plump red fruit, like everything beautiful here, (gems and flowers and rivers, even) glows in the dark. At her touch, the tree’s leaves shiver, but not unpleasantly. Rather, like a warm summer breeze has wafted through them. He swears he can almost hear the dreamy tune of wind chimes as she climbs up his body on her hands and knees to settle comfortably into the cradle of his thighs, bringing them chest to chest. She brushes her nose against his cheek.

“And what did you say to her?”

He laughs and gazes down at the goddess who found him among the flowers all those seasons ago.

“I told her she can spread all the rumors about kidnapping and trickery she liked, but that she won’t get a single spring day more out of it. And in fact - ” He cuts himself short to kiss her. Her lips taste of nightlock, the sweet poison berries mortals know to avoid, but which he has no fear of.

“In fact?”

“I told her if she didn’t leave well enough alone, she could expect an extra long winter.”


	60. steep cost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @567inpanem; Peeta checks on his family as he makes his way to bed

“Everything costs something, Peeta,” my grandma Jenny Ann told me when I was very small, patiently explaining why it was important that I treat her nice drawing pencils with care. “And some things are very expensive.”

I set my brush in the jar of paint clouded water on the kitchen table, stretch. These watercolors, sent from the New Capitol, are just the kind of expensive Jenny Ann’s pencils were. I have to remind my own children they may look but not touch.

Everything costs something.

I pack up my supplies and tidy the kitchen, washing my hands (“water costs money” I tell my children “so we can’t run it when we don’t need it”) and clicking off the lights (“and lights cost money, so we need to turn them off when it’s night”).

Everything costs something.

I make my way upstairs. The hallway is carpeted by a patterned rug, a gift from Sae years and years back (“this was a very special present, and cost a bunch of time to make, so we can’t spill anything on it.”)

Everything costs something.

My daughter’s door is ajar. I quietly ease it open more to check that she blew out her candle when she was done reading. She did, of course, my responsible girl. My apple blossom.

My heart gives a jump as I watch her freckled, sleeping face. She’s almost eight, but it astounds me sometimes, with the same intensity that it did the day she was born, that she’s mine.

Everything costs something. Even my daughter.

I peer into the room on the other side of the hall where my son is snoring. His fluffy white blond head is a mess on his pillow and his thumb is in his mouth.

My throat clenches up as I listen to the soft sound of his breath. He’s four (“and a half!” he’ll proudly tell you) and where his sister is peaceful moonlight he is bright sunshine, warming every corner of this home.

Everything costs something. Even my son.

I shut my own door behind me with a click and turn to my bed. Katniss is curled up on her side, palms splayed on my side of the mattress, like she’s waiting for me, even in her sleep. I hurry to climb in beside her and take her in my arms, pressing kisses to the crown of her head. She hums drowsily and melts into me.

Everything costs something. Even this.

But she knows that, as well as I do, as well as our children don’t. Not yet.

They don’t know the cost of a freckled daughter and a fluffy haired son is so steep.

It costs your gait and your hearing. It costs your first kiss, your first proposal. It costs your dignity. It costs your body and your mind. It costs you a thousand nights. It costs your brothers and your sister. It costs your faith in the one person you thought you could rely on. It costs everything you are.

I tug Katniss closer against me, breathe in her hickory smoke scent, run my hands over the curve of her hip, her belly, the stretch marks she has from carrying our babies, the scars that we’ve tried counting before but can’t.

One day, the children will learn. And I know what we’ll tell them.

Everything costs something. But sometimes the price is worth it.


	61. green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @archersandsunsets, who wanted Everlark + painting, but not in the usual way; I gave her not in the usual way . . . I'm not sure this is what anyone wanted

“I’m forgetting you,” I tell her as they strap me to the chair again. I hear the clink of vials and needles. I know what’s about to happen. It’s been happening for a month. Katniss hovers worriedly beside me, her gray eyes wide and frightened as the doctors prepare their instruments of torture. “They’re turning you into something else. In my head. Something twisted. Something I want to hurt.”

“Fight it,” she implores me. Her hands cradle my face and I can almost imagine I feel her touch. “You’re an artist. Paint a different picture than the one they’re showing you.” She inclines her head to the screen they’ll make me watch when I’m pumped full of poison. “I’ll help you.” 

The first needle is sinking into my skin and I grit my teeth against the intoxicating insanity coursing through me. “Okay,” I pant. “Okay, help me. Give me something else to paint.” 

“The day on the roof,” she says. “Think of the day on the roof.” I concentrate on her words, on the colors she conjures up, and try not to notice the fact that with each needle stuck into my arm, my leg, my stomach, she’s growing fainter and fainter. 

“Remember how pink the sky was? Remember that pink with me.” 

I try. In my mind I sweep a sunset across the canvas of the sky and she nods. 

“Yes! Just like that!” she praises. 

It wasn’t just like that, though. It was prettier. Much prettier. I’ve got the pink sky right, but I can’t remember the pink blush of her cheeks, or the pink flowers in her hair. 

“I can’t — I can’t!” I choke as my ears start to throb. 

“Yes, you can!” she cries. “You have to! Please, remember.” 

“Something simpler,” I beg as my head snaps back in agony against the chair, as I hear a scream tear from my throat. The pink sky is bleeding down the canvas of my mind, turning to red, red like blood. “Something simpler!” 

“Green!” she shouts frantically. She’s fading like mist in sunlight now. “Just think of that! Just one color. Just remember that. My favorite color. It’s green.” 

“Your favorite … your favorite color is green. Your favorite color is green.” I splash the canvas in my mind with it. Green forest where she is most at home, green dress at a party where she swayed drowsily in my arms, green ocean where we waded into surf and caught our breath during the tour, green like the envy she made me feel when — no! 

“Your favorite color is green. Your favorite color is green.” 

_“What is he saying?” _

_“No idea. Up the dosage.” _

The canvas in my head shreds into scraps of memory, but I grab onto one, wrap it around my heart and promise not to forget it. If I forget everything else, I won’t forget this. 

“Your favorite color is green. Just one thing. Just one color. Your favorite color. It’s green.” 


	62. star girl (part two)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a continuation of "star girl" in which Willow finds out why her nickname is "apple blossom" for real

“Papa?” Willow is curled against his side on the porch swing, watching the sun rise, lilac and pink over the forest. The flyaway curls she inherited from him tumble over his shoulder, where she rests her head.

Katniss and Ash have gone out to the woods for an early archery lesson. Inside, a piping hot tray of cinnamon and apple twists is waiting for their return.

“Yes, apple blossom?”

“So,” Willow says, a giggle catching her sleepy voice, “I finally got Mama to tell me.”

Peeta raises his eyebrow.

“That’s hardly a feat. Your mother’s been wrapped around your little finger for sixteen years.”

“So have you, Papa!” Willow reminds him. “But believe it or not you’re harder to crack than she is.”

“No I believe it. And what did you kitten eyes out of her this time?”

Willow sits up straight, sparkling with mischief. “My nickname. Apple blossom. Why you really call me that.”

Peeta is stunned into silence for a moment, then he groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. His lips quirk in a chagrined smile. “Did she really?”

“Papa, don’t be embarrassed,” Willow implores, taking his hands. “I think it’s beautiful. I - I think I love it even more now. I - um - I didn’t know you were afraid you couldn’t have me.”

Peeta nods. “We were afraid,” he admits. “But do you know what? Now, whenever I see an apple blossom, I’m reminded of something.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t have to be afraid. Not anymore.”

Willow’s eyes are suddenly glassy and she glances away from him. He cups her chin and turns her back to look at him.

“You and your brother,” Peeta says seriously, “you are my hope and my courage. Mine and your mother’s.”

Willow, tenderhearted girl that she is, gives a soft gasp and throws her arms around him, clinging tight.

“And is Mama still your star girl?” she mumbles against his shirt.

“Always,” he says. “My star girl, my springtime, and my sunlight.”

They sit like that for a long moment. He keeps the porch swing rocking with his foot. “I’m glad she told you,” he says.

“Me too,” Willow sniffles. Then her body shakes with a laugh. “Though,” she says, wiping her cheek on his shirt, “you should know I’m never going to be able to walk through that orchard again.”

And the Mockingjays pick up the harmony of father and daughter’s laughter and carry it through the trees to mother and son in a pleasant morning melody of warmth and love.


	63. soulmark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for @arainydream's prompt: "You've got a cute butt" - in a world where soul marks are commonplace, Katniss Everdeen has one of the worst

When Katniss Everdeen’s soul mark appears on her right arm, the day she turns eighteen, she bursts into tears and hides in her bathroom for an hour.

Sure, she’s heard of people getting bad, shocking, unspeakable, even, soul marks. But her mother and father have such beautiful ones. And just look and Finnick and Annie! Honestly, how cute is “want a sugar cube?” and “if you’re offering, I suppose so?”

Like, that’s what everyone _wants. _And Katniss Everdeen doesn’t even want a soulmate. But if she has to have one, why couldn’t her soul mark be halfway decent?

But no, the universe has conspired against her. How could anyone whose first words to her are _that_ be anyone she wants to spend her life with?

She ponders this question many times over the next four years, and she’s pondering it again one day after a morning run, as she stretches out against the street light in front of her favorite coffee shop, where she plans on rewarding herself. She pulls one leg up to her back with her free hand and it’s only when she turns to stretch out the other leg that she notices the man who has paused on his way out of the shop, a pastry bag in hand. He’s cute. Very cute: a kind sort of face and welcoming blue eyes. Though at the moment his kind face is going pink and his welcoming eyes widen as he realizes he’s been looking at her for a half second too long to be comfortable.

Katniss takes pity on him. “Uh - hi,” she says, politely as she can. “Did you want to say something to me?”

The man’s eyes go even wider, and his grip slackens on his pastry bag. It hits the sidewalk as he glances at his arm, then back up at her, a mixture of amazement and mortification and complete shock painting his face.

And Katniss’s heart does a bungee corded jolt against her ribcage as her poor soulmate blurts what he was probably thinking when he first noticed her and now his frazzled brain has no filter for.


	64. frog princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU; very southern childhood best friends to lovers Katniss and Peeta discuss baby names and frogs

Her skin smells of bug repellent and sweat, but Peeta strums his fingers down her ribcage like he’s playing a washboard tune. It makes her laugh and makes warmth pool low in her lower body, which is already somewhat overheated by the suit jacket he’s slung over her (it’s the only one he has, so they’ll be washing it later). It’s mostly to protect her from bugs; no one’s gonna be offended by their lack of modesty this far out. And if they were she’d’ve taken his shirt to cover her top too. Instead, a cool breeze that tastes of rain makes goosebumps run up from her belly to her scalp.

The trees above her head quiver in shades of bottle green and faded turquoise. The creek up aways from where they’ve parked is flowing and burbling pleasantly. The stars are just starting to peek out between the leaves but the sun is far from gone, lazing down the sky like a stray smear of orange preserve on the outside of a jar. Somewhere rumpled in the bottom of the truck bed, down by her feet and the plastic cooler, is her nice red Sunday dress. It’s getting way too small for her, what with the twins making her swell up like a balloon. And the truck bed itself, even with the cushioning of blankets under her back, digs a little into her spine. But if she wasn’t sure they’d be eaten alive by bugs, she feels she could fall asleep right here, under the summer sky, sated on love and apple juice and a greasy grilled cheese they picked up from the gas station on the way back from church.

“What about Lily?” Peeta yawns into her hair, hand softly tracing a meandering route on her baby bump. “For the girl?”

“It feels like you’re trying to rope me into a bunch of froggy names and I won’t stand for it,” she replies.

“Now why ever not?” he teases.

“Well what on earth would you call the boy? Hop?”

“I was thinking Reed.”

She pauses. “Dammit, that’s not bad, Peeta,” she grumbles.

“Think about it,” he wheedles, and he’s not playing remotely fair because as he says it his lips have gone to her neck, her weakest spot. “Lily and Reed. That’s pretty stinkin’ cute, Katniss.”

“But we can’t, Peeta,” she whines, one hand clutching at his hair to keep his mouth on her even as she does so. “Imagine telling your mother ‘no we didn’t name our babies after a family member or even a Bible character; we named our babies after a stupid dare I made your son do when we were ten.’”

“It wasn’t a stupid dare,” he says and she raises her brow. “Okay, it was. But it’s also the moment I fell in love with you.”

“I made you kiss a frog!”

“And didn’t she turn into the prettiest princess?” He gently swats her thigh, making her squeak, then adds, mischief coloring every syllable. “And you’re telling me seeing my Momma’s face when we tell her _wouldn’t_ make every second of explanation worth it?”

Katniss opens her mouth, frowns, and closes it again. Then a sly smile lights up her features and she throws her arm over her head in defeat. Peeta crows in victory. “I hate you,” she tells him in a tone that says the exact opposite, and the nearby frogs seem to chirp louder in agreement.


	65. may 8: watermelon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> these next few drabbles are prompts from tumblr for Katniss's birthday; each on is based on an emoji I was sent (for instance, this first one was a watermelon emoji); a mix of canon and AU stories for our best girl's birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fifteen; southern!everlark], written for the prompt "watermelon"

“Sorbet!” Prim cries happily, eagerly herding her sister and Peeta towards the ice cream stand. Dairy makes Prim’s stomach hurt, so she’s become something of a sorbet connoisseur.

The farmer’s market is bustling with the warmth of late springtime: flowers and local honey, the smells of barbecue and kettle corn.

It’s Katniss’s birthday, but she can’t deny her sister anything. Casting a glance to make sure her mother is still in sight among the monogrammed dish towels, she pulls out her wallet and fishes out a few dollars from her allowance for one watermelon (her favorite) and one lemon (Prim’s favorite).

“Want one, Peeta?” she asks.

“Sure,” Peeta says, stepping up and ordering a chocolate ice cream. “How much for all three?” he asks the girl behind the register.

“Wait, no! I’m paying.”

“Absolutely not,” he says and in a moment of teenage gallantry gets the cash over the counter before she can protest. “My best friend. My treat.”

And Prim holds back a giggle as Katniss blushes almost as red as the sorbet Peeta hands her with a shy smile.


	66. may 8: deer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [fifty; canon universe], written for the prompt "deer"

“Look,” she whispers. “Look down there, Ash.”

Her son peers down through the rustling leaves and glowing sunbeams to the forest floor, where a fawn is traipsing after its delicate mother. If this were autumn and they were on the trail of a buck, she’d have guided him to nock an arrow to the string of his bow, but today they’re just enjoying the morning together, mother and son.

(She suspects that his determination to get her out the door at dawn has a lot to do with the surreptitious orders of flour and sugar Willow and Peeta have been sneaking into the house this week, but this is a treat in and of itself too).

“Wow,” he breathes, climbing out on a sturdy branch to get a clearer look. He reminds her of her father in these moments, keen grey eyes mesmerized by what the forest has to offer. She remembers a birthday forty years ago (was it really that long?) when her father brought her out into these very trees and taught her to recognize bird songs. She’s older today than he was when he died. How strange.

Now, she watches her own songbird chatter in an awed undertone about how tiny the fawn’s legs are, and how cute it is when it wobbles, and says a silent word of gratitude to her father’s memory for teaching her how to survive this long. So that his grandson could share her fiftieth birthday with her, up in the sunny springtime woods, without a care in the world.


	67. may 8: chocolate, present, rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [one ... sort of; set in the "violent delights" universe]; written for the prompts "chocolate, gift, rain"

She wakes to a splendid thunderstorm lighting up the house and making the stained glass windows sparkle and cast colored patterns over the rugs in the foyer. She yawns and stretches and casts a glance about for her husband. He’s nowhere to be seen, but she has her suspicions. She slips on a shawl over her gown, takes the bannister downstairs, and finds him in the reading nook in the library, watching the rain and wind.

“There you are, sleepyhead,” he says, opening his arms to welcome her. She curls up against him. “Happy birthday.”

“Do we celebrate two birthdays now? Today and in October?”

“I was planning on it,” he says, nosing her hair. “I need as many excuses to spoil you as I can get.”

She smiles as she remembers the first year they spent together, how he tried his hand at making a cake for the first time in decades, apologizing in advance as he cut a slice.

“It might be awful,” he’d said, as if his homemade bread wasn’t sign enough it wouldn’t be. And of course the first rich, moist bite sent her into a euphoria of chocolate infused bliss. “Well,” he’d laughed softly when she told him how incredible it was and eagerly scooped up more, “that gives you some perspective on how irresistible you are.”

“You don’t need to spoil me,” she says, tucking her head under his chin and closing her eyes, listening to the thunder rumble and the house creak. “You’re plenty present enough.”


	68. may 8: sick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twenty one; modern universe]; written for the prompt "sick/throwing up"

“I hate everything about everything right now,” Katniss whines, lying on the cool bathroom floor.

“Even me?” Peeta teases, rubbing her lower back through her pajama top.

“Yes, even you,” she grumbles petulantly. “If I had to end up in this position it should be because we overdid it on the cocktails at Flickerman’s. Not because of food poisoning.” She curls her knees to her chest and starts to cry. “I just - I wanted a nice birthday.”

“Oh, Katniss.” He stops teasing immediately and bends over to kiss his best friend’s shoulder. “Don’t cry, sweetheart.”

She reaches for his hand and holds it against her sweaty cheek.

“Listen,” he says, stroking her hair, “when you’re better, we’re going to do all the things you wanted to. We’ll go hiking and I’ll take you out for a nice dinner.”

She moans. “I hate food.”

“Then I’ll have a nice dinner and you can watch,” he says, kissing her forehead.

She makes a pitiful noise that might pass for a laugh and then frantically scrambles up on her knees to heave over the toilet. She slumps back to the floor. “Peeta, you don’t have to do anything for me. You shouldn’t even have to be here. This is disgusting.”

“I think you’re forgetting that time I sneezed on you in fourth grade. That was disgusting. You’re my best friend, Katniss. I’m in it for life.”

She wipes her nose. “I love you,” she says weakly.

“I thought so,” he says gently. “And don’t worry. I’ll make sure you have an actual happy birthday when this is over.”


	69. may 8: kite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twenty-five; canon universe]; written for the prompt "kite"

“I think Finn’s more excited about her birthday than she is,” Annie says, watching her son chase the kite’s long tail as Katniss runs circles around him, laughing and shrieking and splashing in the tide.

“I don’t know,” Peeta says with a grin as his wife lets the kite shoot up into the sky out of Finn’s reach, one hand deftly holding the spool and the other gently holding the young redhead back as he tries to snatch it from her. “You really picked a good gift.”

“She’d make a great mother,” Annie murmurs pensively after a moment.

“I know,” he says softly. “She would.”

“Not that - ” Annie adds quickly, “- not that you need to be thinking about that.”

He tears his gaze away from Katniss to look at the older woman, dark eyes kind and lucid. She knows what he went through in the Capitol. She and Johanna. They heard everything. They understand. “We’ve talked about it. It’s not a no. More a not yet.”

“I think that’s good.” Annie takes his hand and gives a squeeze. “I think that’s very good.” She nods her head to where Finn has managed to get the kite from Katniss who is calling something up the beach to them, her voice carried away by the wind. “She wants you,” she says. She smiles. “But then, I think she always does.”

“Come with?” He helps Annie up and she brushes sand from her skirt, and they go to join the birthday girl and her playmate in the waves.


	70. may 8: puppy eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [seventeen; modern universe]; written for the prompt "pleading/puppy eyes"

“That’s not true!”

“It totally is though!” Prim says, helping herself to another slice of pepperoni. “You are completely vulnerable to the kitten eyes. You can’t help yourself. It’s your kryptonite.”

“Not true. I can resist it.”

Katniss laughs. “I’m with Prim on this one. We long ago isolated your greatest weak point. The signature Everdeen kitten eyes.”

“So that’s how you’ve managed to exploit my resources all these years!” he groans, throwing a dramatic hand over his forehead. “All that free ice cream.”

“Oh, speaking of which.” Prim hops up. “Ice cream?”

“Probably needs thawing.”

“Then I shall thaw it,” Prim says, climbing over the back of the couch. “What do people want? We have chocolate and - ”

“Chocolate.”

“Same.”

“Nobody minds if I just consume the strawberry out of the carton?”

“It’s all yours,” Katniss says, making a face. “It’s always all yours.”

Prim disappears into the kitchen and Peeta turns back to his best friend. “I know I’ve resisted the kitten eyes. At least once.”

Katniss grins and raises her eyebrows at him. “Jury’s out.”

“Okay, you know what.” He squares his shoulders. “I’ll resist it right now. Ask me for something, anything.”

“Anything?”

“I mean it has to be something reasonable,” he says.

“It’s my birthday, Peeta. You know you’re not going to be able to do it. That would just be mean.”

“Nope. I’m proving Prim wrong. Do your worst, Everdeen.”

She bites her finger around a smile. “Umm . . . get me some cake.”

“Okay that doesn’t count. I already brought a cake.”

“That’s cheating.”

“Something I didn’t already get you.”

“Get me - umm - a puppy.”

“Katniss, that’s easy. I’m not getting you a puppy. _You_ wouldn’t get you a puppy.”

“Okay fine. Give me a hug.” She holds out her arms plaintively and pouts.

“Ha!” He folds his arms and turns his head away from her. “No way.”

“Please?” she complains, eyes widening entreatingly.

“Absolutely not. Suffer.”

“Rude.” She drops her arms and shoves him over on the couch. He tries to sit back up but she flops on top of him, holding him down. “Okay, you have resisted a grand total of once. And you know you would have cracked.”

“I mean, maybe.” He cranes his head toward the kitchen and lowers his voice. “Don’t tell Prim this but you are right. It is my kryp - what?”

She’s looking at him strangely. Not the kitten eyes. Softer. A slight frown creasing her forehead.

“What is it?”

“Can we try one more?” she asks. She doesn’t sound playful anymore. She sounds nervous, excited.

“Um, yeah sure,” he says. “Prepare to lose again, Everdeen.”

She doesn’t laugh. She bites her lip, leans forward a little, goes pink, and half mumbles the next sentence. “Okay. Final challenge.”


	71. may 8: champagne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [seventeen; canon divergence: not reaped for the quell]; written for the prompt "champagne"

When the parcels and reporters show up, Prim distracts them long enough for Katniss to slip out the back door and run across the street to Peeta’s. She’s sure that’ll only spark salacious rumors, but she’d rather deal with rumors than deal with these people.

She’ll be married to him in a month and then any scandalous tidbits will become commonplace and dull.

They sit on the floor of his kitchen with their backs against the oven, out of sight of the windows. She can hear cameras snap and see flashes through the closed blinds, hear loud chirping voices shout out:

_“Happy Birthday, Katniss!” “Katniss, how are you feeling about the wedding?” “Katniss, so many people have sent love and presents to you! Do you have anything to say to them?” “Is Peeta there? Peeta are you home? Is Katniss there?” _

Katniss groans, takes his hand, and leans her head against his shoulder.

“What’s the damage?”

“As of this morning? Ten bottles of champagne, two dozen specialty cupcakes, a box of diamond jewelry and twenty pairs of lingerie.”

“Wow.”

“I know. I don’t know what I’m going to do with them.”

“I know lots of kids who’d take the cupcakes. And you could trade almost anything for a pretty piece of jewelry.”

“Think about how much food someone could buy with just an earring.” She lifts her head to meet his eyes. “That’s - that’s a great idea, Peeta.”

“As long as Haymitch doesn’t get the champagne.”

She laughs. “And there’s plenty of brides in 12. I don’t need the lingerie but maybe they’d like it.”

“Problem solved, then. Everyone can enjoy something for your birthday.”

“Problem solved.” And before she can stop herself, she kisses his cheek. “Thank you, Peeta.”

“You’re welcome, Katniss,” he says warmly.

_“Peeta! Are you home? Can you make a comment?” _

The commotion outside startles them out of their pleasant reverie. Katniss puts her head back on Peeta’s shoulder and he traces his thumb over her knuckles. She lets him, enjoying the sensation. There will be a gold ring on this hand in a month. The thought makes her pulse quicken and her throat tight for a moment, but she gets control of it with a sharp breath and with the thought that if this has to happen ... she’s glad it’s him by her side.


	72. may 8: flying saucer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ten; set in Star Wars! :D Anakin!Katniss and Padme!Peeta]; written for the prompt "flying saucer"

She swings her shoes over roof of her mother’s hut and watches the twin sunset as it fades into a ribbon of glowing, burning red on the horizon.

Today is her tenth birthday, and all her wishes are coming true. The Jedi are going to help free them, she just knows it. Her and Mama and Prim. They’re going to get out of this place and she’s going to become an apprentice like Finnick and then a knight like Mags and she’s going to come back and kick old Cray in the -

“Hey.” She whips around to see Peeta, the boy from earlier, the king’s representative, the one she’d called an angel. She flushes at the memory. He’d just looked so calm and cool in his blue clothes she couldn’t help it. No one wears blue clothes like that on Tatooine. Blue makes her think of water, makes her long for freedom even more.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. “It’s Katniss, right?”

She nods.

“Can I sit?”

She nods again.

“It’s a beautiful sunset,” he says. “Orange is my favorite color.”

“Green’s mine,” she says.

“Is it?” He smiles. “That’s lucky.”

“Why?”

“Someone happened to mention to me it was your birthday.” From the pocket of his cloak he draws out a green bead on a string, a real metal string, not a piece of cord like Mama wears. She holds out her palm and he lets the necklace fall into her hand.

“What is it?” she breathes.

“It’s a lotus charm,” he says. “And the chain is chromium. From my home world.”

“It’s beautiful,” she gasps. “Thank you. I - I hope I can visit your home world some day.”

“I hope that too,” he says, and bumps his shoe against hers as she gazes at the charm in her hand and daydreams weaving this gift into her very first padawan braid.


	73. may 8: musical notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [seventy-six; canon universe]; written for the prompt "musical notes"

She wakes up to the sound of Peeta singing. She smiles and softly opens their door to hear more clearly as she goes to comb her white hair into a loose braid and thread it with a red ribbon. Then she makes the bed and goes downstairs to find him. They’ve stayed strong as they’ve aged, though her bad ear started needing implants around fifty and his leg needs the aid of a cane again. She can’t sneak up on him as well as she used to be able to, but this morning he seems too absorbed in making coffee to notice her slip into the kitchen. She recognizes the tune over the clink of mugs as he pulls two down from the cabinet and sets them on a breakfast tray. 

_Daisies_ _love sunshine, violets love dew. Angels in heaven know I love you. _

The valley song. She touches the red ribbon in her hair. How appropriate for the little girl in the red dress. Well, she isn’t that girl anymore, but she remembers every word of the song and as he starts up the chorus again, she harmonizes, wrapping her arms around his middle and resting her cheek against his back. He isn’t startled. He’s grown used to this sort of ambush over the years. He just pats her hands at his waist. 

“Happy birthday, wife.” 

“Thank you, husband,” she yawns. “Feeling nostalgic?”

“Hmm, more pensive.” 

“Oh? About what?” 

He turns around to face her and brushes a silver flyaway behind her ear with the hand that sports a tarnished copper ring. “It’s just … as of today … we’ve outlived the Games.” 

She stares in amazement as the realization washes over her. Then she reaches around him and grabs one of the mugs. She raises it in a passable imitation of their late mentor and smiles. He answers the smile and the empty mugs chime together in a single note of quiet victory. 


	74. may 8: side by side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [thirty-eight; canon universe]; written for the prompt "man and woman standing side by side"

“Mommy! Mommy!”

The crowd of children dismissed with the end of day bell pours out of the wildflower overrun recess yard to meet their parents. Willow races up to her mother, her school bag half open and the ribbons her father tied her double braids with coming undone.

“Apple blossom!” Katniss cries, scooping her daughter up in her arms and kissing all over her freckled cheeks. “How was your day?”

“Good,” Willow says dismissively, more intent on excitedly fishing something out of her bag. “I did a picture for your birthday.” She proudly smushes the paper into her mother’s free hand.

“Oh, my catkin,” Katniss coos, nuzzling Willow’s cheek. “I love it.”

“You didn’t even look,” Willow complains.

“But I know I’ll love it,” Katniss says. “Because you made it. Let me see.”

She surveys the picture and her lips quirk in amusement. It’s clearly meant to be herself and Peeta and Willow holding hands in the meadow. The drawing is incredibly colorful (her outfit is bright blue) and has no sense of size (the flowers tower over them), but Katniss can see Peeta’s artistic fervor in every pencil swirl. A neatly spelled “Happy Birthday, Mommy” makes a turquoise banner over the top of the page.

“Your writing is so good!”

“Ms. Leeland helped me,” Willow admits.

“But you wrote it,” Katniss says, kissing her daughter’s nose. “I’m so proud! This is the perfect gift!”

“I love you, Mommy,” Willow sighs, flopping against her mother’s shoulder and looking up at her adoringly with bluebell eyes. “Can we have cake now?”

Katniss laughs. “I love you too, baby girl. And yes, let’s go pester your Papa for some cake.”


	75. may 8: fairy girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [who knows how old; set in the "silver eyed archer" universe]; written for the prompt "fairy girl"

“Do faeries have birthdays?” I muse aloud one night, watching the stars gleam to life above the boughs of the trees. It’s late spring and the leaves rustle in a restless wind. I have nothing to fear from a storm, drowsing in this bower home, and the way the swaying branches flick light over us is almost more enchanting than any of the real magic I’ve seen.

“Birthdays?” the archer hums against my shoulder in our nest of furs. “What’s that?”

“Oh, just, celebrating the day you were born. Sometimes with cake or presents or something. If you can afford it.”

“Oh. I — I don’t think so? I wasn’t really born, I don’t think. I just became.” I feel her sit up and against the shifting backdrop of starlight I can make out her shadowy form, those bright silver eyes glimmering down at me. “When’s your birthday?”

“November,” I say. “Not for a while.”

“We’ll celebrate then,” she decides, an eager, almost childlike note in her voice. I swear the wind picks up excitedly in response. “If you like.”

“I’d love that,” I say. I reach up, finding her cheek more by memory than anything else. “I’d like to celebrate yours too. Maybe we could pick a day?”

“Why not today?” she says. “Tonight and tomorrow?”

“Okay.” I chuckle. “Alright. Why not?” I’m not precisely sure of the date, except to guess it’s sometime in late April or early May. “Today it is.”

“So what now?”

I smile and pull her down to me. She’s soft and warm and she smells of spring grass and cedar. She feels like a normal human, not like an ancient forest spirit. “Well,” I say mischievously. “It’s like I said: we celebrate.”

She makes a funny little growling sound in her throat. I can never get the upper hand on her and she’s on me in a flash, legs bracketing my torso as she kisses me fiercely, nipping at my lips. “I’ve changed my mind,” she murmurs hotly, “I want my birthday every day. Today, tomorrow, all the time, always.”

“Greedy. That’s not how it works.”

“My woods,” she reminds me in that half teasing, half serious way she has. “My husband. My rules.”

“Whatever you say, dear,” I laugh, and surrender.


	76. may 8: bouquet of flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [thirteen; set in the "what if it's us?" universe]; written for the prompt "bouquet of flowers"

When a bunch of blue flowers show up on Lara Sutter’s desk, the girls in seventh period coo and gasp and speculate over who they could be from.

Katniss watches from her seat by the window as Lara tosses her curls back and informs everyone in a preening mock whisper that:

“They’re sweetheart flowers. Harvey sent them. He must’ve known it was my thirteenth birthday this weekend.”

There are some groans and grimaces from the boys and Katniss can’t help a smirk as Lara shoots them a dirty look.

“He did!” she says. “They’re my favorite kind!”

“What are they?” asks Addie May. “Bluebells?”

“Yes, they’re - ”

“Wild asters,” Katniss pipes up.

“What?” Lara’s eyes flick to her, brows arching.

“I said they’re wild asters,” Katniss repeats. “My mother used to say they mean lo - ”

“I don’t care what your mother used to say.”

“But you - !”

“How would you know anything about sweetheart flowers. You’d have to have a sweetheart for that.” She laughs snidely. “And let’s be honest, who’d be sweethearts with a Community Home Girl?”

“I - ” Katniss glances away, stung. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes and she swipes them away angrily.

She sits quietly in class, biting her lip in frustration. She shouldn’t have said anything. She’s still downcast as she joins Prim and Peeta for the walk back to the home and they notice immediately. She relates what happened dismissively, and it is a lot easier to laugh it off as the childish squabble it was out here in the open air with her best friend and sister beside her.

They’re angry but Katniss promises them it’s nothing, and doesn’t think about it again until her own birthday a month later when she shows up in seventh period to find Lara Sutter glaring at her, and her usual gaggle of followers clustered excitedly around Katniss’s window desk and the beautiful bouquet of pink azaleas and sunny dandelions that sits waiting for her.


	77. may 8: thunderstorm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twenty-seven; canon universe]; written for the prompt "thunderstorm"

I’m forced out of my bath when the power goes out. Luckily, the candles burning on the windowsill are enough light to find a towel by and I dry myself off with a little less leisure than I was planning on when Peeta sent me upstairs to relax while he prepared dinner. We were meant to have a picnic by the lake this afternoon, watch the sun set over goat cheese tarts and fresh lemonade. But the storm that rolled in around five, plunging the outside into a bank of cloud so thick it might as well be nine at night has … uh, dampened those plans. The rain and wind were nice for a while, from the comfortable warmth and sweet aroma of my bath, but in the dark, the way the house shakes and flashes starts a panicked pulse in my throat. 

“Peeta?” I call down the stairs, wrapped in my bath robe, curling my toes nervously. 

“Right here,” he assures me. There’s some rustling around in the kitchen and then he appears at the bottom of the stairs with a flashlight. “This is exciting, huh?” he says with an exasperated smile. 

“Hmm,” I agree, feeling more at ease now that he’s with me. “Some rain check.” 

“Oh not so fast,” he says, extending his hand to me in mock gallantry. “I have a backup plan.” 

I laugh as he scoops me up and nuzzles my cheek, setting the flashlight on my lap as he totes me downstairs. “Is that so?” 

“Well,” he says, “the chicken pot pie is out.” 

I let my head fall back against his shoulder. “My birthday is ruined.” 

“But,” he continues, unperturbed, “the ice cream is not.” 

Lightning floods through the doorway of Peeta’s painting room, the space that used to be a study, with its wide stained glass windows, and is now covered in easels and canvases. “I present you, a picnic.”

He’s laid out the plush comforter from the guest room, an array of glowing candles on the furniture and floor, and two heaping bowls of homemade ice cream in the middle of it. I kiss his cheek and hop down to settle into the little nest as he tugs back the curtains more to give us a better view of the storm outside. He makes a sweeping gesture as though presenting the wild weather to me as a gift. “Happy birthday.” 

“Quit it,” I say around a spoonful of strawberry. “Come here and hold me.”

He gladly does as I say and I lean back against him with a sigh. Any fear of the storm had abated into pleasant normalcy as we skip straight to dessert, cozied up with my back to his chest, watching light sparkle and flash like rainbow reflections in the lake. 


	78. may 8: aladdin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twenty-two; college au]; written for the prompts "genie and prosthetic leg"

We’re so tired by the time we make it back to the apartment that though we’ve been making thinly veiled comments at each other about the mischief we’re going to get up to when we get home, I’m not sure there’ll be much mischief past ordering a pizza and watching a movie and maybe passing out before any of those. A day at the lake will do that to you. We tumble into bed and manage to get Aladdin on in the background. We spend twenty minutes trying to decide what pizza to order before we give up and Peeta gets up to pop some popcorn instead.

I turn out the bedroom lights and turn on the ring of tacky fairy lights that circles the ceiling, kick off my shorts and burrow down under my blankets up to the top of my head, wiggling my toes around to warm myself up. I’m so happy and cozy and tired I can barely move. I’m sunburnt and sore from a day outdoors with my sister and my best friends, picnicking and hiking, swimming and stargazing in the just warm enough May night. I love being with them ... but, I think (turning over to call into the kitchen that Peeta should make some hot chocolate too) now I just want a lazy evening in with my fiancé.

I grin, still not quite used to that title. “I know you don’t like fuss,” he’d told me last night, “So I thought I’d give this birthday gift to you without everyone around.” I should have known what he was doing. We’ve talked about getting married for almost a year, so I knew it was coming, but my jaw still dropped and I gasped when instead of a paper bag or a box with a bow, he’d slipped a tiny circlet of diamonds into my hand.

I hold it up to the light now as he meanders back into the bedroom with the bowl of popcorn and two hot chocolates, which he sets on the side table. “My leg is killing me,” he whines, flopping into the mattress face down.

“Poor baby,” I say, but I perch up on my knees to detach his prosthesis for him and give his backside a consoling pat.

“Thank you,” comes the groan from deep in his pillow.

I roll my eyes and settle my back against the headboard, slinging one leg over his torso, giving him a halfhearted sort of massage with the heel of my foot as my glazed eyes absently take in the animated blue genie singing and dancing. It’s all a little too colorful after an already colorful day, but I find myself humming sleepily along. Eventually, Peeta emerges from the pillow to wrap his arms around my middle, pressing kisses to my collarbone.

“Happy birthday,” he yawns. “Gonna sleep now.”

I laugh, click off the movie, and slump down so I’m half ensconced under his body, half hugging him with my legs. I drop a peck on the top of his head and close my eyes, completely exhausted myself.

“Hey guess what?” I whisper.

“Hmm?”

“We’re going to get married.”

He gives a deeply satisfied little hum and nestles further into our embrace. “Can’t wait. My wife.” I snort softly because he’s barely making any sense and I can’t blame him. Planning a proposal and a day full of Katniss-appropriate activities (not to mention baking me a cake) would wear me out too. But the “my wife” comment, said so easily, has my heart all aflutter in a childish way that hits like a shot of caffeine.

“Go to sleep,” I say before he can wreck me any more. “I love you.”

“Love you more,” he protests, and I think we’re both out before the hot chocolate’s even gone cold.


	79. bathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a healing bath drabble was asked for and it has been supplied; it occurs to me only now this is similar to the “hero Cottontail” drabble but I don’t care I love Everlark bathing each other I guess; sue me

“Okay, no.”

Katniss throws back the bed coverings and gives Peeta’s shoulder a shove. Some days they deal with this gingerly, soft spoken, slowly. Today is not one of those days. He’ll give her grief, but he’ll thank her later. “You’ve been in bed for days, Peeta. We’re getting up. Right now.”

“Go away, Katniss,” he snaps, brittle. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. I don’t care.” She’s far smaller than he is, but in this moment, she’s more stubborn. She perches on her knees beside him on the mattress and hauls his torso around to face her. “I didn’t drag your ass through the arena for you to give me lip. Get up.”

He growls grumpily at her, a glare knitting his pale brow. He looks awful. Sick and sweaty and dull eyed. Her heart twists with pity and love, but she doesn’t let up. He needs this. “Come on,” she insists. She pulls his shirt up over his head, despite his protesting hands. “I’ve made you a bath and you’re going to get in it. It’s getting cold.”

“I’m not!” he says, sounding like a petulant child. He turns over, back to her, rigid. She fumes, but she recognizes this is progress. He’s angry, but at least he’s feeling something.

“Fine.” She tosses his shirt to the floor. “Well, I’m not going to waste the water.”

She sheds her own clothes in high dudgeon as she marches away to the bath she’s made up. Steam rises from the tub, smelling of the lavender and orange she perfumed it with at the recommendation of her mother. She splashes into it and sinks down up to her nose to wait.

She doesn’t have to wait long. She knows him. He braces himself against the doorframe, looking contrite and weary. “I’m - ” he starts.

“Come here,” she orders, sitting up. He obeys, disrobing and removing his prosthesis, climbing into the bath opposite her, knee up to his chest. He doesn’t meet her gaze until she lifts his chin to look at her. There’s a clarity there, and a remorse. “There.” She gentles. “Let’s get you clean.”

She snags a cloth and takes his hands, caressing some color back into them. Then his whole leg, the stump above his left knee, his stomach.

“This smells nice,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

“Good,” she says. She sets her wet palm against his heart. His fingers close over hers. “Hey,” she says.

“Hi.” His voice is hoarse.

“I need you to be here, okay?” she says, cloth tenderly tracing scars and old bruises that never really healed. “I need you to come back.”

“I know,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry, Katniss.”

“No.” She kisses his collarbone. “No, don’t apologize. I understand. You know I do.” She sets the cloth over the spigot and frames his face in her hands. “What is it you tell me, when I get like this?”

“Fight it,” he says. “You have to fight.”

“And what else?”

He’s crying, quietly. “But you don’t have to fight alone.”

“Never,” she promises, kissing his nose. “Not once.”

He nods, gives a broken sort of laugh. “I love you.”

“Come here,” she repeats her command from earlier, but this time it’s a whisper as she draws him down to rest his cheek against her chest, her back set against the edge of the porcelain. “It’s alright.” She doesn’t say anything else as she washes his curls, running a little more water to keep the bath warm. He’s half dozing against her when she’s done, and she’d be tempted to let him sleep (there’s a genuine ease in the way he’s breathing) if she wasn’t afraid of turning to into a prune.

“Okay, you,” she grunts, giving him a nudge. “Up.”

And she knows he’s returning to her when, as they’re getting redressed and opening the bedroom windows to let some fresh air and sunlight into the stale space, he manages a light smirk and says, “We’ve come a long way since that stream, haven’t we?”

“Don’t even start,” she quips. “We haven’t come that far. I still expect you to march downstairs and eat a full plate of whatever I set in front of you.”

“Well, you’ve never failed me before.”

She takes his hand. “And I don’t intend to.”


	80. catch the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another comforting little canon drabble; Katniss sings

“Bad one?” She curls against his side and throws one leg over his hip, as he watches the moonlight play on the ceiling, liquid blue.

He shakes his head. “Not awful,” he says. His voice is steady, just tired.

“Hmm.” She brushes her lips against his shoulder as she speaks so that each word is a caress. “Would you like me to sing?”

“Please,” he says, closing his eyes in relief as her fingers trace along his cheek, around his ear, up into his hair.

“I have a new one,” she tells him.

“I love it when you make your own.” The flicker of a smile plays around his mouth. “My songbird.”

“Hardly.”

“Go on,” he pleads. “I want to hear what it’s about.”

She clears her throat. Her voice is soft and low and a little raspy with the night air in her lungs.

_you gave the gift of home and hearth and heart so easily_

_I know you wouldn’t ask for more, least of all from me _

_but I don’t love by halves, my dear, this you know is true_

_I’d fly up to the starry sky to catch the moon for you_

His breathing evens, slow and content. She nudges her head under his chin and closes her own eyes, the gentle moonlight dancing around the edges of her approaching dream like the faeries in Prim’s favorite bedtime story.

She smiles and yawningly repeats the last notes of the tune she invented doing the laundry yesterday, watching him diligently chop wood for their fire.

_I’d fly up to the starry sky to catch the moon for you_


	81. plates and pearls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just a little "grow back together" drabble; a pinch of angst, mostly soft

I watch the raindrops chase each other down the kitchen window. My hands hold a pink floral plate idly under a stream of warm water. I think my mother picked this plate out, when the Peacekeepers came to set up our house after my first Games. I’m grateful she spared me that nonsense. I wouldn’t have chosen a plate like this, but I lift it up to press against my heart, wet as it is, and think of my mother. 

I needed her, once. I did. I can admit that now. Lots of people did. Do, at her hospital in 4. She’s doing good things there. Helping people. And I - 

I wash the dishes. Do laundry. Hunt. Help Peeta with the plant book, but - 

It’s nothing like what my sister could’ve done if she lived. Nothing like what my mother is doing. Nothing, really. 

I sigh, pinch the end of my braid. I’m so distracted I don’t even notice Peeta come in, clunky as his footsteps are. I try to mask my troubled frown, but he catches it, of course. 

“What?” Hand cups my elbow. 

“It’s just — I was thinking — ” I’m not upset, more resigned. “Nobody really needs me,” I say with a kind of shrug. 

I know as soon as I’ve said it I’m wrong. Peeta’s frown is pronounced enough it could rival one of mine and that would make me laugh were it not for the hurt in his eyes. 

“I didn’t think — I meant — ” I try to backtrack, but I know he knows what I meant. 

Did you know that if you put enough pressure on people they’ll turn into - ? 

What did we turn into? Long term roommates? Live in therapists? Friends who share the same cramped bathroom and help smear scar cream on each other’s hard to reach spots: top of the spine, back of the thigh, soft patch behind the ear?

Or something like what we had before? Whatever that was. Whatever it could be. 

I think I’m about to find out. 

“Katniss,” he says. “I do. I need you.” 

I know how this goes now. I remember how to do this. I set the plate down and put my arms around his neck. The small of my back presses against the sink and a small sound escapes me as his mouth presses against mine. It might be a laugh or a sigh or the sound of something giving way inside me. I remember the arena breaking into a thousand stars the night I lost him. But we break apart and he is right here and I catch my breath against his cheek. 

The sink plashes in the background. Waves on the shore. Pink floral plate. Pink sky. I lost my pearl a long time ago, somewhere in the City Square. My pearl is right here. 

He told me my family needed me, that night on the beach. My mother doesn't. My father never really did. Prim can’t. 

(Peeta’s lips rest against my forehead. I let my arms fall to his middle and hold him tight against me. I stroke up and down his back). 

(This won’t be something like we had before. I think it might be better). 

My family still needs me. I need him too. 


	82. breathless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt [a kiss that lasts for so long, they are sharing each other’s breaths] on tumblr; I was asked to make it hurt, so this is canon-divergent angst central; also tw: for suicide

The crowd surges, Snow’s laughter catches on a gurgling choke, and I don’t even hesitate. I raise my left arm and tear the nightlock pill out of the fabric, snap my teeth down on it. Peeta reaches me, grabs my shoulders, just as the taste hits my tongue.

Hundreds of confused and half formed emotions swirl in the strangely silent space between us. Shock, hurt and betrayal, and beyond that, emotions I don’t have the words for. Emotions that belong to the pair of us who laughed and longed for more under a sunset sky on a rooftop. 

I register this in a quarter second and already I am starting to fade. My bow drops from my hand and I feel my knees start to buckle. I fall to the ground and he goes with me, and I am absently grateful for his arms around me.

“Let me go,” I sigh. “Let me go.”

“I can’t,” he says, simply, far too simply, as though it were obvious, and I know what’s going to happen before it does. I might even try to shove up on my elbows to help him fit his mouth to mine. I’ve failed everyone else. But I can do this. I can keep this pact. 

I can hear people’s voices and I know the gray uniforms are descending on us, but it doesn’t matter.

There’s a strange kind of hunger in this kiss, not passion, no fire, but bloody, sickly sweet with the pill between us, like we’re trying to devour each other. 

I think I can hear my father singing.

I can feel Peeta’s heartbeat in my mouth and his breath against my chest and I think we might be the same body somehow, one heart and breath, crumbling to ash under a gray sky, like everything from District 12. 

I can hear Prim’s voice.

I’m choking like that night in the hospital but Boggs is dead. Peeta’s heartbeat slams to a stop against mine but Finnick is dead. No one is coming to save us.

Rue is whistling.

_Well, _I think, as watery figures surround us, too late,_ we did want everyone to see._ Peeta drops dead against me. My head hits the pavement with a crack. 


	83. breathe easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the follow up to the previous drabble, written for the kiss prompt [pulling away from a kiss, whispering words of love against each other’s lips]; much happier than the last one :D

I wake with a pained inhale of breath and instantly bring my hand to my mouth, pawing at my lips for the taste of nightlock and sweat and blood. Nothing. Just my morning breath and some lingering traces of the lingonberry pie from yesterday evening. The one we ate straight from the pan with our fingers. Strange that such a pleasant, innocuous thing could stir up such a dream.

But it almost wasn’t a dream, I think. I was that low then. I would have done it, I would have taken that pill, had he not interfered. I shiver to think what would have happened if I’d managed it. I want to say my subconscious is being self centered to imagine Peeta would follow after me, but I’m not sure it is.

I frown and banish the thought from my mind. That isn’t us now. We’re better. Not whole, but better. Much better.

He stirs and grunts when I roll over to lie on top of him, my feet tucked under his thighs.

“Hi,” he says, before his eyes are even open, blinking in the sunlight, then giving up and squeezing shut against the glare. “What time is it?” 

I don’t answer him. I lean forward and kiss him, not desperately like I did in my dream, but lazily, softly, savoring his soundness. “I love you,” I say. I’m not as shaken by the dream as I might have been years ago, but I can still feel the cold pavement in my skin and I kiss him again, winding my arms around his neck and sneaking my hands under his pillow, soaking up our shared warmth. 

“Katniss, what — ?” 

“I love you,” I repeat against his lips, and the phrases come out in fragments between kisses. “I love — love you — just — so much — love you.”

He gives up on talking. I can feel him smile and know he’s going to tease me about this display of sentiment later when the heady haze of morning gives way to a more sharp edged, unsentimental Katniss’s kind of afternoon. But it’s alright. Haze or not, I mean every word. 


	84. uninhibited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for the kiss prompts [throwing their arms around the other person’s neck, hugging them close before kissing them passionately on the lips] and [one person stopping a kiss to ask “Do you want to do this?” only to have the other person answer with a deeper, more passionate kiss]; canon-divergent: Katniss and Peeta become friends without the Games

The heat of the summer morning is already bordering on unbearable when I tuck my braid into its cap and close the door of our house behind me, careful not to wake mother and Prim. I’ve forgone my father’s jacket and instead I wear only a light shirt with the sleeves folded up to my elbows. I sit on the porch to knock my boots clean and lace them up over my pants, then head out towards the fence and the woods. I slip under the chain link with no trouble and find some relief in the shadowy pools cast by the leafy trees. It’s a bad day for hunting. If I was an animal, I’d be in my den too. I pass by the place where my father’s bow is hidden, but I don’t retrieve it. I have more important quarry to track today. Buoyed by the thought, I start to run, towards our meeting spot, the place we’ve met for years. 

“Katniss!” he heralds me with a shout. It’s alright. We can shout here. It’s not as far into the woods as the rock where Gale and I convene on Sundays, but no one’s going to hear him. He jumps to his feet and I crash into him, throwing my arms around his neck. My feet leave the forest floor as he spins me and I press my face into his shoulder, breathing him in. 

“We made it,” I find myself saying. “We made it, Peeta. We’re free. We made it.”

“I know,” he says. I feel the palm that’s splayed over my spine tighten. “I know.” 

I feel my eyes start to sting. Yesterday I felt lighter than air, trying not to skip home from the reaping with Prim’s hand in mine. It would have been awful of me. But here, with the boy who saved my life seven years ago, who has been my friend for five, who learned this trek into the trees for my sake, I’m not afraid to be improper. In this moment, I’m not afraid of anything. Not even — 

I lift my head from his shoulder and kiss him square on the lips. Peeta half yelps and the sound makes me jerk back, face blooming pink. “I’m — I didn’t — I shouldn’t have done that,” I choke, mortified. I try to let myself down from our embrace, but Peeta tightens his arms. He’s staring at me, mouth parted in shock. 

“Should you not have?” he breathes. 

“Should I not have?” The hopeful note in my voice tells him everything he needs to know and the next instant I find my back against the nearest tree and his hands cradling my face.

“Do you want to do this?” he asks, not demanding, but eager, curious. I know him. I know he’s not asking me for more than this moment, not for an us, not for a future. Just for this. I nod, but as our lips meet again, I can’t help but hope he’ll ask me again. For another moment like this, hot and happy and alive — and maybe more after that. And maybe, if he never stops asking, I’ll find the courage to never say no. 


	85. second first kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what it says on the tin; written for the kiss prompt [staring at each other’s lips for a moment before moving closer, as if drawn by some unseen force]; canon consistent; more "grow back together!" :D

“Hey.” I get my favorite mug from the cabinet, fill it with tea, and lean against the counter to drink it. 

“Hi.” She’s wearing mismatched socks and for some reason the detail makes me smile as she washes us a bowl of raspberries for breakfast. It’s a warm spring day, and cottonwood is meandering past on a light breeze. I lean across her to open the window, let some fresh air in through the screen. I brush my hand over the small of her back as I do. She bumps her shoulder against mine gently. 

We might go for a walk later. Maybe to the market. Get some flowers. Or some lemonade. I don’t know — and it’s okay. I don’t have to know. The uncertainty doesn’t frighten me anymore. 

“Breakfast?” Katniss says, gives me a smile, as she holds up the colander of raspberries, still dripping water onto the floor, onto her mismatched socks. She picks out a berry and pops it into her mouth. 

“Breakfast,” I agree — but neither of us move to the table. 

“What?” 

“What what?” I ask. My voice comes out in a teasing whisper. The breeze toys with the loose dark strands of her hair. 

“What what what?” she says, arching up on her tiptoes to put her nose close to mine. “You’re not making any sense, Peeta.” It’s almost a coo. 

I can’t help it. My eyes flick down to her lips, which are quirking softly, curiously, then dart quickly back up to meet her gaze, just in time to catch her doing the same. She catches her breath. Pink blossoms across her dusky features and I feel flush shoot up from my neck to the tips of my ears. 

“Hey,” I say, exhaling an awkward half laugh. It’s funny, after all we’ve been through together, I still feel a little like a schoolboy with a crush. It’s nice. That I can still feel that way. 

“Hi,” she says. Breathes, really.

She sets her bowl down on the counter. I set down my mug. Our first first kiss was muddled and clammy and tasted of pears and sour breath. Our second first kiss is clearheaded and warm and tastes like raspberries and peppermint. 


	86. hair pins (feat. repression)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pretty much what it says on the tin; Katniss and Peeta share a charged moment over hair pins during one of their nights on the train

**[her] **

There is a storm outside the train tonight and our car shakes somewhat as we strip out of the clothes we wore to speak to the people of 7. I leave my dress in a heap on the floor, reach up to undo my braided crown, and groan in quiet frustration when my already weary arms start to ache with pulling out the myriad of pins.

“Here,” Peeta says softly, “Let me.”

I drop my hands to my side. His hands go to my hair and the pins come sliding out easily. He sets them in a pile on the mattress where we sit. The tension in my head begins to unravel as my tresses come down around my shoulders. Peeta’s fingers brush against my neck and I feel both a comfort and a strange shiver of ... something ... at his touch.

For some reason, my mother’s voice comes to me, speaking about toasting nights and bridal braids. My eyes half close and I think how easy it would be to fall back against this gentle boy’s chest, feel his arms go around me, his breath on my neck, nose buried in my unbound hair as his hands ...

“There you go,” he says, scooping up my pins. “Where do these go?” I open my mouth but no sound comes out. “Katniss? Are you okay? You look red,” he fusses.

I heave a great, awkward breath, cough, and practically leap off the bed. “Yeah they can just go on my side table!” I yelp and make a beeline for the bathroom to find my toothbrush.

**[him] **

I set Katniss’s pins on the nightstand and make a conscious effort to slow my breathing. I try not to think of toasting nights and can do nothing but. In town, the brides wear bridal crowns, simple things, made of woven flowers and ribbon. I’ve seen many a husband throw it laughingly into a crowd of friends and family before he carries his bride up to bed.

My heart rate speeds at the image the pins have conjured up in me. Katniss in ... well, whatever dress she’d like, her hunting attire if she wanted ... and a crown of flowers and ribbons (chosen by her sister) atop her head. I wouldn’t throw it to a crowd though. I’d wait until we were in my room and I’d set it over the copper foot post of the bed, unbind her hair like I just did, except I wouldn’t stop with her hair.

I glance at the crumpled dress on the floor and imagine it’s her bridal gown, and that if I turn around and look at the bed she’ll be lying there, soft and stern as she always is, and I can gather her up in my arms and press my lips to her neck and breathe in her scent and cover her with my body and keep her warm and safe and love her ...

“Hey, do you know where the toothpaste is?” she asks from the bathroom doorway. My dream melts away into the stormy train compartment and I give her a weak smile and tease her about misplacing our toiletries again. I guess this will have to do.


	87. cuddle day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt ["you're not in bed - I came looking for you"]; tweaked the prompt for maximum fluff; Cottontail is my invention, a little white cat that K&P find either in Buttercup’s later years or after he dies; she is much more cuddly than Buttercup, as you will see; Perch and Pillow credit @arainydream on tumblr

I wake up early, as I always do, and check to see what kind of day it is going to be.

The nest is all warm and there are several perfect pools of sunlight for dozing in later. I raise my nose and I smell birds and mice in the garden outside the open window. Any other day I’d be eager to chase them, but not today, because after my check I have determined that it is going to be a cuddle day.

I love cuddle days.

Cuddle days mean lots of cold chicken and lots of scratches and lazy conversations. I have no idea what my humans are saying when we chat, but I’m good at figuring out how they feel - and that seems to work fine.

I stretch my paws out and twitch my tail and yawn and look for Perch and Pillow.

I call her Perch because she is good for standing on to get a view, even though she is short. We go on adventures together. We bird watch together. She is my best friend.

He is Pillow because he is soft and good for feeling safe. We splash the colors together. We make treats together (I am good at making prints in the cookies). He is also my best friend.

I go to find my place between them up at the top of the nest, where I sometimes sit to protect them from the night, but they’re not there! I yelp in surprise. Today is a cuddle day! Where are they?

I hop from the nest and scamper down the stairs, calling loudly for them. My ears perk up when I hear Pillow, making that funny tsk tsk noise with his mouth. There they are! On the front porch. I bound over to the screen door and Perch opens it for me as I raise a paw to swipe at it.

She says something I don’t understand, but it sounds happy, and involves my name, Cottontail, as she scoops me up. I purr and rub my nose against hers, chittering at her as she sits down on the porch swing.

_You’re not in the nest! _I tell her as she coos nonsensically back at me. _I came looking for you! _

Pillow sits beside us and I bump my head against his big paw for pets. I don’t think they’re listening to me anymore. They’re carrying on a soft human conversation over my head, but Perch’s paw strokes my fur and Pillow will make us breakfast soon. I tuck my tail to my nose. This is still shaping up to be a perfect cuddle day.


	88. heartbeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt ["you make my heart beat so quick"]; an in-Panem AU little autumnal treat, way too early

Katniss sets down her mug of cider on a barrel when Peeta clears his throat and asks if she’d like to join the heel toe polka the fiddler has begun to play. People catch hands and find clear space on the cobblestones under the crude paper lanterns. An autumn wind carries the wood smoke and the scents of harvest away over the shops and houses, into the dusk. She watches it go, mostly so he can’t see the blush that’s heating up her face because the truth is she’d love to dance. This song was one of her father’s favorites, and the memories it conjures up are sweet ones she wants to indulge in. And on top of that there’s something so frustratingly intense about her date’s (can she call him that? is that what this is?) blue eyes in the orange firelight. _How did they get here? _

Well, not here, exactly. She knows how they got here. She’s still sort of reeling from it. It was a week ago, when she and Gale were coming back from the woods, carrying a haul to trade in town, though she’d been insisting he save some meat for his own twenty fourth birthday. Gale had been the one who’d nodded a greeting to the baker’s youngest. Gale had been the one who’d stared agape when Peeta Mellark paused, firmly set down the rake he was holding, marched over to them, took a deep, half ragged breath, and asked Katniss to be his date to the Harvest Fesitval. And Gale had been the one whose eyebrows had shot up in amusement and surprise when Katniss went bright red, yelped “okay!” and then scampered past the bakery like one of the squirrels she’d shot that morning.

He’s the one whose gaze she finds now, talking to a mining friend of his by an apple cart. His eyebrows go up again, and a smirk curves his mouth, as if to say, “Oh, quit playing around, Catnip. You wouldn’t put on a dress and do your hair for just anyone.” And it’s true. It’s nowhere near the level of primping some of the town girls go to, but she did rummage around in her mother’s hope chest to find her grandmother’s old red dress, and she did put her hair up in a braided crown, and -

She tugs at the sleeves of the jacket around her. Not hers. Peeta’s. She forgot hers and at the first slight shiver, he’d immediately set it around her, enveloping her in the scent of cinnamon.

Gale’s right. Unfortunately. She’ll never hear the end of it. She turns back to Peeta and feels her heart do several un-Katniss-y pitter patters and she bites her lip. She doesn’t know how they got here, after all those years skirting around each other with quick glances and perfunctory conversations, but she’s glad they did.

“Yeah,” she breathes, “Let’s dance.”

“You sure?” His hands come up to hold her shoulders. He searches her face with concern. “You’re trembling. Should we go inside or - ”

“It’s not the cold,” she confesses. “It’s um - ” She inhales sharply and blurts it out, something that’s been true for years, though she never worked up the courage to say it. “It’s just ... you make my heart beat so quick.”

They stare at each other for a beat, breath clouding the air, and then, and she’s never quite sure who started it, they both laugh, embarrassed, relieved laughter.

“Well,” he says, smiling at her, and the tension between them relaxes into something else, still charged, but gentler, “if it’s any consolation, the feeling is mutual.”

“Maybe we won’t notice as much if we’re dancing,” she suggests, with a nod of her head to where people are promenading.

He holds out his hand and she takes it. “Let’s find out,” he says.


	89. popsicles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just some summery fluff; canon-verse

“Peeta,” she half laughs, half sighs in exasperation as she wipes the straight razor on a hand towel, “you cannot hum while I’m doing this.”

“Your songs get stuck in my head,” he laments, leaning back in his chair on the porch.

It’s a sunny day, and hot, and the cicadas are going insane. She takes the compliment with a smile. She’s in a good mood today, tipsy on sunlight and iced tea and the knowledge of his trust. The significance of him allowing her to place a blade so close to his throat, only six years after the war, is not lost on her. She kneels up between his legs and tips his chin up to get a better angle.

She’s growing quite fond of his neat winter beard, but it’s much too warm for it now. The wildflowers he braided into her hair earlier this morning are wilted in the heat. She’ll need a haircut soon. Him too. Maybe tomorrow.

“Alright, you,” she says as she finishes. “We’ve got laundry to do now.”

“Oh, it can wait,” he sighs and tugs her into his arms. She presses a kiss to his clean shaven face. “Clothes. Who needs clothes?“

“What would you rather do?” she laughs, tucking her head under his chin. He picks up her hand and toys with her fingers as he considers.

“Let’s ... make another pitcher of iced tea and ... “

“Popsicles,” Katniss says. “I’ll let you off the hook for laundry if you make me popsicles.”

“It’s a deal,” he says and scoops her up with a spin. “Lemonade and raspberries, my little wife?”

“And you’ll take me to our orchard later, husband mine?” she says, mischief and the promise of a soft violet evening under the breezy trees in her eyes.

“This deal is benefiting me more and more by the second.”

“Now what is it the toasting vows say?” Katniss says teasingly. “‘Shared joys and pains? Shared bread and bed?”

“And shared orchard and popsicles, apparently,” he says, pecking her lips as he kicks the door open and sets her on the kitchen counter. He sets to washing his hands and she splashes him playfully with the water. It’s a nice relief from the heat, so he just splashes her back and says. “Well, far be it from me to question the ancient vows. Get the picnic basket and blanket ready?”

“Mhm!” And she hops down and darts upstairs in a flash of sunlight and scattered bluebells.


End file.
